Snuggles the Symbiote
by Rater202
Summary: Bizzare things happen, sometimes without warning. On the night she first went out to be a Hero, Taylor Hebert met a little girl in need of a friend and felt the call to be a Hero of a differant sort. Rated for language.
1. Chapter 1

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

I, Taylor Hebert: Wannabe Superhero, sat patiently, occupying myself by counting the ants and roaches in the walls, on a repurposed infirmary bed as a doctor or male nurse fussed about my arm. He didn't seem to know what to do with the burnt silk or the burns it was stuck to.

"...Miss," he said after a moment, "I'm… I'm afraid that I don't have the equipment to treat burns of this severity on hand… I'm not even sure how it's possible for you to have only surface damage in some spots and third or even fourth-degree burns elsewhere. Honestly, now that I think about it we should probably have a dedicated burn ward on site."

"Does this mean that she's… Is she gonna…?" asked the room's other occupant in a strange, echoing voice. A little girl, maybe nine or ten, who I'd met earlier tonight. She wore a bizarre metallic costume, gold marbled with dark blue, that tightly covered her whole body except for the shoulder length black hair that clearly hadn't been washed in a while. There were two wide oblong shapes on her otherwise featureless mask that seemed to correspond to her eyes.

"Oh no, your friend will be fine," the medic reassured, "now Miss…?"

"I'm still working on a name," I admitted.

"Well young Miss," he continued, "you have two options: I can call the Dallon residence, get Panacea out of bed, and Brandish will yell at me, or I can have you admitted to the hospital where you'll likely be at the top of her list once she starts her shift." I'm not quite sure how he managed to read my expression through my mask. "So before I go to get chewed out by someone I don't even work for, are you in any pain at all?" He actually sounded a little confused.

"Kinda," I admitted, "like, when I first got lit on fire, I didn't really feel anything except hot, but after a bit, it hurt like hell. On a scale of one to ten, I'd give it maybe a four and a half."

He blinked at that. "Oh...Okay, well, that's good. Pain this late means that the parts of your arm that aren't charcoal aren't completely dead. Normally I'd offer you a painkiller, but I'm sure they're going to want to talk to you. I can, however, give you something for that," he said gesturing to the hole that had been melted through the abdomen of my costume and the chemical burn underneath. I tied to repress my irritation that three or so months of work, farming spiders and weaving silk, had been ruined in one night.

The doctor or whatever went to some sterile looking stainless steel cabinet and started tugging on a drawer. He muttered something about it being due for a replacement, then managed to unstick it with a pull forceful enough to spill some of the contents.

"Da...arn," he said, then bent down, coming back up with an almost comically large syringe, and then came a commotion.

I turned suddenly, wincing as I jarred myself, to find that the little girl I'd met earlier was no longer standing where she was. I looked up and saw her, hands behind her back, legs straight, clinging to the ceiling by her palms and soles. The eye ovals had collapsed to two dark blue lines, giving the impression that her eyes were closed tight, and her head was tilted away from the doctor.

"Okay then," the man said, then put the needle away and approached me with a large toothpaste type tube. "This is an all-purpose ointment for just about any kind of burn you can think of," he said as he began applying it, "some tinker in Jersey figured out how to make it in huge vats. There's not enough for everyone and it expires in less than a month, but the PRT likes to have it on hand in any site with tinkers on board. It won't do anything for a burn as bad as your arm, but..." By the time he trailed off, the chemical burn was gone. "One of the unmentioned perks of working with us," he said with a wink, "now Armsmaster should be back any minute, so sit tight while I step out and get myself yelled at by Obi-Mom Brandnobi." Okay, I got the 'funny' doctor. Great.

He left to make the call, and I looked back up at the little girl. "So, are you afraid of needles?"

She looked right at me, made a tsst sound, and said " _noo_ " with a little too much emphasis.

"Okay then," I replied.

The girl tensed up all of a sudden, her mask simulating a look of realization, and slowly she flipped and adjusted herself so that she was crouched upon the ceiling instead of merely hanging from it. Honestly, it kind of brought to mind a spider. "...I can wall crawl," she said slowly and with all of the reverence of a small child finding out that she was about to meet the real Santa Claus.

"Yes," I said, "you can."

She then flipped down so that she was standing on the ceiling, shot her arms out at an angle towards an empty corner of the floor, and shouted: "go webs!" Nothing happened, and the girl looked at her hands, which were held with her pinky and index fingers extended straight, ring and middle folded in, and her thumb at a right angle. Devil horns or something, I'd seen people flash it at rock concerts. She pulled her arms back and extended them again, "stick'em!" Nothing. She sighed, then slowly extended one hand, fingers forward: "Thwip!" Still nothing. "Aww," she moaned with disappointment. I said nothing, not quite sure about what it was she was trying to do, but I did smile for a moment: However she'd gotten her powers, it must have been much more pleasant than being trapped in a locker full of rotting tampons and biting insects if she was so happy about them.

"Okay," she said to herself, "we can shapeshift right? We did that earlier with the Meany… So we should be able to…" She thrust her fist straight down and shouted: "Embiggen!" prompting her arm to stretch about an inch or two. Honestly what she'd done earlier against Lung was much more impressive, but she seemed satisfied with her result judging by her happy exclamation of "close enough!"

"Embiggen, huh?" I asked in an attempt to make small talk.

"It's a perfectly cromulent word," she replied in complete seriousness, and I felt my eye twitch. My mother the English Professor must be turning in her grave right now.

I heard her skitter across the ceiling and came up close to me before flipping down again, "um, I have a question."

"Shoot."

"Uh," she began with a tone that practically dripped awkwardness, "the doctor called you my friend earlier. I've never really had honest real life friends before. I mean, I've got Mister Snuggles now, but that's not the same, so… a-are we friends?" There was something desperate in her voice.

"Yeah," I answered, "we're friends." The eye-marks on her face widened and shifted. It took me a second to comprehend it, but it was in a way that implied that under her mask, she was giving a big, goofy smile.

A few fruit flies out in the hall were disturbed by heavy footsteps. Moments later, Armsmaster, in his blue powered armor, stepped into the room. "Alright," he said, "now this is a little unusual, but because of the hour Director Piggot herself..." he trailed off when he saw the young girl hanging from the ceiling. "Okay then," he continued, "well the director will be here shortly."

"Actually, I have a question?" the girl asked: "where is here?"

"This is the Parahuman Response Team Headquarters for the East-North-East Region, located in the city of Brockton Bay," Armsmaster explained patiently, if not giving perhaps a bit too much detail.

"Uh… I don't know what any of that means," the girl admitted. "I'm from Manhattan and I've never heard of Parahuman Responder Teams or a city called Brockton, so..."

"Well," I said slowly, "you're from Manhattan, in New York City, right?" She nodded. "Then you'll know about Legend and the Protectorate?"

She shook her head. "Sorry, no."

I noticed Armsmaster grimace. "Young miss," he asked, "could you slowly turn all the way around?" She did so, managing to avoid unsticking from the ceiling by only moving one foot at a time. "Can you tell me what your earliest, clear memory is?" he requested when she was finished.

"Hmmm," she hummed as though in thought, "I was maybe three or four. I think the air conditioner in our apartment was broke or something because it was hot and the windows were wide open. Mommy said to stay away from the windows, 'cause we lived on the top floor of a really big building, but I didn't listen and when she wasn't looking I fell out. It was really scary, but then Spider-Man caught me before I could hit the ground and carried me back up."

I'd never heard of a hero called Spider-Man before. I'd have to look him up to make sure I wasn't infringing on someone else's brand. Still, it was weird to think that she could have grown up in New York and never have heard about Legend.

"What year is it?" Armsmaster asked.

"2016," she answered, "er, maybe 2017."

I snapped to attention. "What?"

More flies were disturbed by someone hobbling down the hall. Shortly after a portly woman supporting herself with a cane entered the room. "Alright now," she declared, "I understand that there are two skilled young wom..." she noticed that the young girl was still hanging from the ceiling. "Why is a prospective Ward standing on the ceiling?"

"If you just found out you could walk on the ceiling," the girl said, "wouldn't you want to do it?"

The woman looked thoughtful for a moment. "Well, you're not wrong, I suppose."

"Director," Armsmaster interrupted, "the situation is a bit more complicated than I initially thought."

"How so?"

"The younger one is an atypical cape. A rudimentary initial investigation suggests against Case 53, she doesn't have a visible mark on any part of her body I'm comfortable examining and she seems to lack amnesia, but I suspect that case 81 isn't a hypothetical anymore. Case 72 might also be in play."

The woman went from stern and serious to bug-eyed and shocked in less than a second. I wasn't sure what those case files were, but… I looked up at the girl.

"Little girl?" The director asked, "Who is the most famous hero in the world?"

"Captain America!" the girl exclaimed, giving the name of someone I've never heard about. "He's been around since before World War Two when the government was running top-secret experiments with Super Soldiers. He's been around ever since fighting for liberty and justice: I even read that he punched Adolf Hitler in the face during the war! How do you not know that?"

The director and Armsmaster looked at each other. "Miss… What name are you going by?" the Tinker asked after.

The girl went quiet for a little bit, clearly thinking over it, and then exclaimed: "We're Snuggles!" I blinked. She'd mentioned a Mister Snuggles before… Why did she keep switching between I and we?

"Alright then, Snuggles," he said with a small hint of incredulity, "have you ever heard of the concept of alternate universes?"

"Oh yeah!" She said happily. "I heard that the Fantastic Four used to tinker and explore those all the time and Slothbaby on Freakin Awesome thinks that the black and red Spider-Man that's with the Champions is from an alternate universe but I think he's a clone since the real Spider-Man's already been cloned like a bazillion times. Besides, what does she know: she ships Spider-Marvel when Spider-Man's True Love is _obviously_ The Black Cat. She just needs to stop being evil first."

I think I understood what Armsmaster and the Director were getting at now. Honestly, it was kind of comforting to know that Cape Geeks were a constant of the Multiverse.

"Well, Snuggles," Armsmaster began, "you've mentioned people, events, and what I think is a website that, to my knowledge don't exist. You're also off on the date by about five or six years. You don't seem to be lying or mentally ill, which brings me to conclude that you're what we call a Case 81: an empowered refugee from another, unknown universe."

"...We don't know how to feel about that," Snuggles admitted after a moment.

"Don't worry," The Director said, "while rare, we do have technology capable of traveling between universes. It'll take time, but we should be able to get you home to your family."

"...My family's dead." Snuggles said quietly. "Grandpa Patrick passed away a few years ago and some bad men with guns killed Mommy and Daddy and took me… A long time later I met Mister Snuggles and he helped me escape but people were fighting and there was a boom and I woke up in an alley off a street where all the buildings had bars in the window."

"I'm terribly sorry," the Director comforted.

"How long ago was it that you woke up here?" Armsmaster asked.

"About a week, I think." Snuggles replied, seemingly happy to be changing the subject. Wait, last Sunday night there had been some weird lights in the sky…

"What's Case 72?" I asked, curious and wanting to keep the discussion going away from…

"Time Travelers," Armsmaster explained, "it's rare but it does happen every so often."

"Alright, well," The director said with the tone of someone wanting to finish the task at hand, "Armsmaster has told me that the two of you were a big help earlier and were interested in joining the Wards program?"

I felt my stomach clench. Honestly, I didn't want to join, but I wasn't sure how to refuse now that I was already here.

"I'll join if she does," my new young friend said while pointing to me… She was a homeless orphan. If she doesn't… If I don't… damn it.

The director looked like she was about to say something, but there suddenly came a loud gurgling sound from the vicinity of the stomach of the little girl on the ceiling. "Hehehe," she laughed, "Sorry. It's been a few days since I've eaten anything."

"Well, I'm sure we can find you something to eat," the Director said, and then… Where's Doctor Landis?"

"He went to call in a favor from the Dallons," I said, "to get Panacea to fix my arm." I'd have raised the arm in question, but it was still severely burned and… "Actually, I think the sleeve is going to have to come off and this is black widow silk, so if there are any bolt cutters in the building it'd be a good idea to bring them up here."

Armsmaster produced a device from a compartment in his armor, resembling a buttonless TV remote with a pair of miniature shears at the end. I blinked. Was it weird that he just had those on him?

"Well then, we'll see about getting… Snuggles some food," the Director said, "and then we can talk about what happened earlier tonight while we wait for our friend from New Wave."

I nodded but noted that the Director didn't seem to have much experience talking to minors as though they were minors.

 **Snuggles the Symbiote**

"...And then I was all like 'oh my gosh, I get to be a superhero!' 'cause it really hadn't come to mind that I could be a superhero now, and then I asked 'ooh, can we be heroes together?' and my new friend was all like 'sure, why not?' and we started walking together." Snuggles explained in a normal voice. Then she stopped to eat yet another donut. They'd had someone from the skeleton crew that worked here at night bring down half a box that was left over from some department's break room and Snuggles was practically inhaling them. Something I hadn't needed to know: Her costume was part of her power and a piece of her mask melted and oozed it's way up her nose to free her mouth to eat the donuts. "And then we stumbled up to this big muscle guy with a metal mask and lots of dragon tattoos and he was all like 'Muahahaha! We're gonna kill all the kids and maybe kick a few puppies!' and my new friend was all like 'not today!' and suddenly he was covered in bugs."

The blonde young woman who'd carried Panacea all the way here then turned from Snuggles to me. "You seriously just attacked Lung out of nowhere?" Glory Girl asked incredulously.

"I got burned for a reason," I answered, "I mean, honestly, what was I supposed to do? He was going to kill a bunch of kids." Panacea had her fingers in the convenient hole in my costume from where the acid melted through it.

"Ee-yah!" Snuggles shouted her agreement around yet another donut. She swallowed and continued: "Heroes are supposed to stop things like that."

"Next time, maybe think things through before attacking the most dangerous villain in the county," Panacea snarked, "third-and-fourth-degree burns are a pain and a half to fix. By the way, for the next week or so you're going to have to switch to a high protein diet if you don't want your muscles to atrophy. A lot of your flesh isn't salvageable and the new flesh has to come from somewhere. Seriously, I'm not even sure how you're conscious right now, are you a brute or something?" I gave the best approximation of a shrug I could manage.

"If we're giving advice," Glory Girl added, "since your costume is ruined, maybe go for something a little less edgy than solid black with a bug-face for a mask for the next one? Honestly, if I hadn't been told you were a hero I'd have had you pegged villain on sight and that would have been really embarrassing if we'd crossed paths patrolling at night or something." I nodded in agreement to hide my gulp.

"Hero vs Hero stuff always sucks," Snuggles chimed in. Then she muttered something about someone called Captain Marvel. "Anyway, the big meany had this fuzzy naked blue spider-lady with him and she spit on my friend and I was like 'spitting is rude' and then I sprouted a tail." A long lizard or maybe alligator like tail suddenly protruded from the small of her back. She thumped it on the floor and continued: "and I didn't know I could do that but I didn't let that stop me and I kersmacked the spider-lady and we kept helping to fight the bad guys even when the meany turned into a dragon and started using all the scary fire, because there's no way that Spider-Man would let a bunch of kids get killed by a bad guy, and we fought for a bit, and then Mister Armsmaster showed up and stabbed the meany with a needle that was in a big ax and then he fell asleep and then we all attacked the spider-lady at once and she ran away. And then he brought us here and that's everything that happened."

Armsmaster and the Director had been silent the whole time, just letting Snuggles talk and Panacea do her thing, but I got the feeling that Armsmaster was recording Snuggles' explanation.

"That's not quite what happened," I added, "but it's close enough."

"And done," Panacea declared. I looked down at my bare arm which, other than being perfectly smooth and hairless, looked exactly the way it had before.

I flexed a few times and waggled my fingers. "Good as new. Maybe a little better. Thank you."

"Yeah, there were a couple of poorly-healed microfractures and stressed ligaments, like if you punched something too hard or if your arm was suddenly wrenched and you didn't get a chance to rest it like three or four months ago." I had a good idea of what _that_ had been. "Your bones were a little burnt, and it was easier to fix the whole bone than just the chard parts." the healer explained.

"Well, thank you again," I said. I'd have smiled, but she wouldn't have been able to see it through my mask.

"While I'm here," Panacea said with a turn to Snuggles, "you want me to take a look at you?"

"Uh," the girl said before licking some donut jelly off her chin, "we didn't get hit much and we heal fast, so..."

"Actually," I said, thinking her admittance that she'd spent a 'long time' being held captive and not eating for a few days, "it might not be a bad idea. It can't hurt you if she just takes a look, and you might be more hurt than you think you are."

"Okay I guess," Snuggles said, "so… you have to touch my skin?"

"Yeah," Panacea confirmed, "any skin will work-that bit of uncovered face is good enough. Do I have your permission?"

"Yeah, okay."

Panacea placed a few fingers on a bit of Snuggles' exposed cheek, and the immediately recoiled, stumbling back and falling on her ass with an exclamation of "Jesus Christ!"

"What's wrong!?" Snuggles shouted, "are we gonna die!?"

"You've got some kind of parasite! Like, your lungs and GI tract are filled with some kind of living gunk, there's more in your blood! That!" she gestured to the girl's costume, "is more of it, and there's a chunk latched into your brain stem! I could sense more of it bonding to your other organs before my eyes." Panacea was shaking, "you should already be dead! I don't even know what the fuck that thing is!"

I stood up, but I wasn't sure what exactly I could do. Glory Girl, Armsmaster, and even the Director seemed antsy, but… Snuggles frowned and covered her face back up again. "He's not a parasite. His name is Mister Snuggles and he's a symbiote. We're not hurting each other and we both benefit. My science book calls that mutualism."

"You shouldn't be able to breathe!" Panacea shouted hysterically. "Your lungs are full of living goo that I think is partially made of metal."

"We don't need to breathe anymore," Snuggles said casually.

"How does that even work?" Panacea asked. "How are you talking?"

"I dunno," Snuggles said with a shrug, "my homeschooling program doesn't cover astrobiology and other alien stuff until high school."

"Alien?" everyone asked simultaneously.

"Yeah, symbiotes come from outer space. Do you not get aliens in this universe?"

"This universe!?" The Dallon sisters exclaimed.

The director pinched the bridge of her nose. "...I will be very upset if I find out that… Snuggles' unique refugee status left this room. No one in this room will like it should I get upset."

"I'm sorry," the girl said. "But yeah. He's not a parasite. He's my friend. He eats my extra hormones and in exchange, he keeps me from getting sick and gives me superpowers that don't suck."

"...Okay, assuming that she's not being mastered or something," Panacea continued, "than other than the parasite-"

"Symbiote," Snuggles interrupted. "He can understand you and you're hurting his feelings."

"Other than her symbiote," Panacea corrected, "there are some substances in her blood that I'm not familiar with, no corona or gemma, a gene complex I've never seen before," Snuggles flinched, "a lot of extra hormone production to the point that I'd suspect powers if she wasn't completely without powered potential, and she's in remarkably good health all other things considered."

"Alright then. I think that's all you're needed for," the director told the sisters Dallon, "thank you for your time, and give my thanks to your parents for letting us borrow you so late and on such short notice."

The two left, with an apprehensive last look at Snuggles from Panacea, and Snuggles and I were alone with Armsmaster and the director again… Actually, the doctor had never come back and I wasn't sure if that was weird or not.

"What did you mean by powers that don't suck?" Armsmaster asked.

"Uh… I promised I'd never tell anybody."

"Powers have a different mechanism in your world." Armsmaster inferred, "something genetic, maybe?" The girl flinched again, "You don't have to answer, but I think you do have powers of some kind without your… partner, and that you were kidnapped because of them."

"Yeah..." Snuggles admitted while looking at the floor. "Please don't tell anybody, but… I'm a mutant."

"I take it that you mean that in something other than the strict biological sense," Armsmaster asked, "Technically speaking, things like red hair or blue eyes are mutations."

Snuggles groaned. "There are a bunch of different ways you can have powers where I'm from. People like Spider-Man or The Fantastic Four or the Hulk, they get exposed to some kind of radiation and it triggers a latent mutant potential, and they've got something special in them so they get superpowers instead of cancer. Other people like, like me..." She sighed. "The way my science book explained it, we're not technically the same kind of human as other people." I was starting to get mad on her behalf. "Like, humans are _Homo sapien_ , right? My book says that, like, cavemen were _Homo sapien neander-something_ and that regular humans are sapien twice, but my science book said that mutants are _Homo sapien superior_ because of the natural superpowers that we're born with or just kick in one day… I don't _feel_ superior though," she said bitterly. "When I was little, I started getting sick all the time. My parents paid for a lot of tests and found out I was a mutant. Normal mutants get cool powers like mind reading, or eye-blasts, or sharp claws that go _snikt_ ," she said with a wave of her hand-her fingers extended into claws, but without a sound. Maybe Mister Snuggles reacting to her thoughts? "But me? I get super hormones that mess up my immune system and I can't take medicine to keep from getting sick because my powers also make drugs not work." She seemed to shrink. "I don't know why, but a lot of people don't like mutants. I get all of that and don't even get powers to make up for it. But, it was okay. I never really felt well enough to leave the apartment anyway, and I had mommy and daddy and grandpa... but they're all gone now..." She finished quietly.

She sat down on the floor and curled in on herself. I felt something stir in my chest. I walked over, crouched down, and hugged her. I couldn't tell if she was crying behind her mask, but she hugged back, the tail she'd sprouted curling around me, and leaned up against my chest.

"So," I said, "we were going to talk about the Wards program?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

Snuggles had made a comment about not having bathed in a while and the Director had had a female agent escort her to a locker room so she could use the facilities. I'd followed them with some flies, ants, and roaches that were in the building while sitting in the director's office.

"Now, Miss… You know," the Director began, "it would be much easier if I had a name to call you by, even if it was only a temporary one."

"Yeah, well… All the bug names are either taken, sound villainous, or are just bad. I mean, who'd want to be called Maggot or Grub?"

"You know, it doesn't have to be directly related to your powers," The director said, "it could be a more indirect reference or completely unrelated at all."

I thought about it for a second. Something indirect… I looked down at my costume… "Well, as long as I'm not stuck with it, I guess that maybe 'Silk' works as a filler name."

"Well then, Silk, I have to ask how old you are?"

"...Fifteen," I answered, "why?"

"Because you can't legally join or leave the Wards until you're sixteen unless you have the permission of your parents or legal guardians." The director explained matter of factly. "Now, since your friend is a homeless orphan, it's not an issue for her, as she can be declared a ward of the state, pun not intended, and placed in the PRT's custody," she went on, "but unless your birthday is in… half an hour," she said, checking her desk clock, "then you're going to need to contact your legal guardian."

Damn it. "...I didn't want him to know I was doing this."

"And when I was your age, Silk, I wanted to ride a tyrannosaurus," the director said with a straight face, "but sometimes what we want isn't possible and wouldn't be a good idea even if it was. Do you have a phone?"

I shook my head, and she offered me her desk phone. I sighed and started dialing. One ring, two rings, three.

He picked up. " _Hello?_ " came Dad's voice. He sounded angry, and worried, and…

"Dad?"

" _Taylor?_ " he asked, " _Where are you? What's going on!?_ " Oh, I didn't like that tone.

"I'm at the PRT headquarters," I said simply, "I need you to come and..."

" _Do I need to bring a lawyer?_ "

"No."

" _Is there a body I need to look for and hide before I get there?._ " My eye twitched. I wasn't sure if I should be happy that Dad loved me enough to hide a body or angry that he thought I might have killed someone.

"Dad, I'm not in trouble." I tried to explain. "Also, I'm sitting right in front of the director and using her phone, so this is maybe not the best time to joke about that."

" _Okay, okay,_ " he said. He sounded calmer but still irritated.

"I just need you to come here and," the director slip me a piece of paper with a line highlighted, "and tell the woman at the desk that 'the duck quacks at midnight.' Apparently there's some kind of security thing and that password will get you brought right to where I am, so..."

" _Seriously?_ "

"Seriously."

" _Alright, I'll be there as soon as I can. I love you_ "

"...Love you too."

We hung up at the same time, and then I began just sitting there awkwardly. The director began working on some paperwork that had been on her desk… I looked down at my backpack, thankful that I'd insisted on retrieving it before coming in, but desperately wishing that I'd packed a book.

The agent had gotten Snuggles down to a locker room. She pulled the younger girl aside for a moment, which prompted Snuggles to recoil. At first, I felt anger and concern, but then the flies in the locker room detected the smells of flowers and chemicals, so maybe it was the agent offering shampoo from her locker and it was too strong? The girl moved to what I presumed to be the showers, and I averted my attention to let her have her privacy, though I kept some focus on the agent, who'd moved to stand outside the locker room door.

I wasn't sure of what else I could do… I mean, I have to imagine that a lot of stuff here was to be kept secret… I grabbed some of the bugs in the building and set some up in the lobby and some others outside, so I'd know when Dad got here. I started tapping my foot, and after a few seconds I started counting and mapping the various bugs in and around the building by type, variety, and location just to have something to do.

Ten minutes later, Snuggles stepped out of the locker room and after a short conversation I couldn't make out, she and the agent made their way to an elevator. About five minutes after that, they arrived in the office and Snuggles immediately skittered up an uncovered bit of wall and sat frog-style on the ceiling. The director sighed, and the Agent left.

"Uh, I didn't want to say this in front of her," Snuggles said, "But Ms. Smith has really bad taste in shampoo. It was like a flower farted."

"Snuggles," I called up, "my Dad's gonna be here soon and he's gonna help us work out this thing about the Wards."

"Okay," she said cheerfully. Then part of her costume started expanding and oozing out until it solidified into a shiny, bio-mechanical looking tentacle that ended on a sphere and three pinching claws, which then turned to me.

"Uh..."

"Oh, I was explaining what a handshake was to Mister Snuggles a little bit ago," Snuggles said. "He wants to try it, so..." Ah, what the hell. I carefully clasped the offered tentacle, which gently wrapped around my arm, and shook.

After a moment, the tentacle retreated and Snuggles gave the impression that she was beaming behind her mask. "He's happy now."

"Yes, well," the director spoke up, "when Silk's father gets-"

"Silk!?" Snuggles interrupted.

"It's a temporary name I'm going with for now, until I can think of something permanent," I explained. "Is there something wrong with it?"

"Where we're from," Snuggles began, "Silk is the name of a _hussy_ who goes around in a bathing suit made from her weblines. She's a witch or something that copied Spider-Man's powers and tries to seduce him with evil mind control pheromones while posing as a hero… I think. Some people say that she got bit by the same radioactive spider as Spider-Man, but then where has she been for the last forever, huh?"

"Okay. So, not Silk," I said as I crossed that off the list, "well, it was a filler name anyway." No sign of Dad yet. "So, Snuggles, maybe tell me a little about yourself?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like," I thought about it, "like the kind of music you like."

"Oh, well, I really like Country music and Folk music," she started, "and a little bit of the old school Rock and Roll, and I kind of like Estelle's music but that's mostly because she does songs in a cartoon I like… That won't be out for a few years because I didn't just go to another universe, I also traveled back in time." I had no idea who Estelle was. "Uh… Quick question, did a movie called _The Princess Bride_ get made here?"

"Yeah," I said, "I've never seen it, but I've read the book and heard that the film's got a huge cult following." I wasn't sure if it'd be the same as in her universe though: Movies and books from a certain point after Scion began to deviate between Earth Bet and Earth Aleph and based on her talks about Super Soldiers in World War II, her world had deviated a lot earlier than that, but she suddenly seemed a bit relieved and I didn't have the heart to tell her.

My eyes outside saw a familiar looking truck come up front, and shortly afterward Dad came into the lobby. While he spoke to the woman at the desk, my attention was brought back to Snuggles as she looked at her hand, shifting it back and forth from normal to the clawed appearance it'd taken earlier. "Hey," she said, "we can make claws!"

"Yes," I said, "you can. My dad's in the building, he's gonna be here soon."

The director looked up. "How do you know that?"

"If there's a bug anywhere in about two blocks, give or take," I explained, "I can see and hear everything it does."

"Okay then," the director acknowledged.

"Anyway, Snuggles?" I asked with a turn to the little girl on the ceiling, "That tentacle looked a lot more… Mechanical than your tail."

"Uh… um..." Snuggles grumbled… "Uh, I can't quite explain it as well as he can. He says he's willing to tell you, but he has to 'appropriate my vocal apparatus' to do it, 'cause he can't talk on his own except in my head. So… Things are gonna get a little weird."

Snuggles kind of twitched a little and then turned to me. "Greeting to one temporarily designated 'Silk,' greeting to one designated 'Director.' " Snuggles tone had changed, a little bit… It was kind of like the echoing voice was the main one and her voice was the echo. "This one's host has designated this one 'Mister Snuggles' on the logic that the physiological bonding process was 'like being hugged all over.' " Snuggles eyespots blinked. "This one favors this designation," it said with a nod. "One designated 'Silk' wanted to know details of tentacles… This one was experimented on, as was this one's progenitor. This one's species, designated 'Klyntar,' invaded but were defeated and this one's progenitor was captured. This one's progenitor had samples extracted from it, then died after spawning this one. This one spent its entire life being experimented on, samples taken, substances spliced, exposed to radiation and strange energy. This one's tentacle-appendage appears machine-like as it was fed appendages that appeared mechanical but were in truth biological. These appendages seemed to be based on this one's progenitor's bio-matter integrated with the genetic sequence of an unknown being, and this one recreates those appendages based on genetic and physiological information in them. Older, more evolved Klyntar could create appendages on their own, but this one cannot yet. This one's claws are derived from the genetic code present in a sample this one was given, likewise, with this one's tail and the powers this one possesses: Beyond most basic abilities of the Klyntar, all are derived from genetic code this one was fed or the energies this one was exposed to."

"Thank you for the explanation," I said, "now… can we have your host back?" I know I'd kind of asked for this, but Mister Snuggles was actually kind of creepy.

"Momentarily: This one has facts that it wishes to state." Snuggles eye spots narrowed, giving the impression of a glare, and her head slowly turned to the director. "One designated director? This one was subject to experimentation. This one was harmed by experimentation. This one's progenitor was killed by experimenters, and while relationships between progenitors and offspring in Klyntar tend toward what human tongues describe as murderous hostility, this one's host's memories indicate that this one should be saddened and outraged." Snuggles' head cocked to the side. "This one's host's progenitors were slain by the same people who experimented on this one, causing her great sadness and outrage. This one's host was subjected to similar treatments, things extracted from her and things placed in her. This treatment harmed her." The symbiote was silent for a few seconds. "We… Have… Been... _Hurt_." Mister Snuggles said slowly and carefully, as though thinking through each word to be perfectly clear. "This one cares for three things: This one's host, this one's well being, and the well being of this one's host. This one does not know what this program designated 'Wards' is, but if one designated 'Director,' one designated 'Armsmaster,' or others being affiliated with program designated 'Wards' bring harm to this one's host or to this one," Snuggle's body dropped from the ceiling and landed on Director Piggot's desk in a crouch. "We… Will… Eat… Your… _Brain_ ," it finished carefully. It wasn't making a threat, it was stating a fact. It was almost cheerful, even.

Then it hopped from the desk into a chair next to mine that had actually be prepared for Snuggles, landed sitting, and apparently switched back to the girl because the next thing out of her mouth was an outraged "Mister Snuggles! That's not nice! ...because it's not nice to make threats… it just isn't! And heroes aren't supposed to kill people for making them angry… No, not even then… Preferably not ever!" I got the impression that she was rolling her eyes, "I don't care if that feels weird to you, we're gonna be a hero and that's how heroes do things... Love you too. Oh, and no eating brains… Because it's disgusting!" Snuggles then sat up straight and looked at Director Piggot. "Miss director lady, I'm sorry about that and so is he. He's very little, he doesn't know better."

"It's quite alright," the director dismissed, "I've received more severe threats from much more intimidating capes for far pettier a reason. The director almost smiled, but then her face became as stern as it'd been all night: "Don't do it again," she said in a much more authoritative tone.

Snuggles shrank back. "Got it, no more threatening to eat brains," she said quietly just as the door opened.

"Okay," came my Dad's voice from behind us, "what did I just walk in on?"

"Nothing of any importance," the director stated, "please take a seat, Mister..."

"Hebert," Dad said, and took the seat to my left, opposite of Snuggles. Then he looked at me. "Taylor?"

"Yeah Dad," I said, "it's me." I pulled my mask off and stowed it in my backpack, then retrieved my glasses.

"If we're sharing real names," Snuggles added, a florping sound indicating that her mask was retreating back inside her, "my real name is Ashley." I turned to her and saw a little Asian girl with bright green eyes.

"Taylor," Dad said, "your hair is singed."

I winced. How was I supposed to explain this to him?

"Mister Hebert, as has been explained to me," the Director added, "earlier this evening, your daughter encountered Ashley here," the director sounded happy to not have a silly name to call the girl by, "while going on her first patrol as a hero and agreed to walk with the younger girl until they encountered Lung talking about murdering a group of children before engaging him and his pet."

"Oh. Oh my God," Dad said, his mouth hanging open in horror.

"And now," the director continued as though she hadn't been interrupted, "Lung is in a cell on the Rig and your daughter and her new friend are considering joining the Wards program."

Dad turned to me, incredulous. "...You beat Lung?"

" _We_ beat Lung." I said, gesturing to Ashley, "she's a lot stronger than she looks."

"I can grow claws, a tail, tentacles, and stretch my arms a little bit," Ashley provided happily. "Also, I punched the meany in the groin as hard as I could."

"And Armsmaster showed up and tranqed him," I finished. "We're all fine, so..."

"...We can talk about that later then," Dad said, "you're sure you're… Why is your costume damaged?"

Shit, "We're here to talk about joining the Wards." My eye twitched as I said it. Why was it that the one thing I'd never wanted to do as a hero was rapidly becoming the only reasonable option I had? "So my costume is probably another thing we should talk about later," I said with a forced smile.

"Alright," Dad said, "you want to join the Wards?"

I didn't want to lie to my Dad. At least, not any more than I'd already had "...honestly, no, but Sn-Ashley here won't join unless I do and honestly, someone has to keep an eye on her."

"Excuse me," the director asked, "but what do you mean by 'keep an eye on her?' "

"Most of the Wards are high school age," I explained, "do you really think it's a good idea to throw a little girl who's never been to school head first into that kind of teen drama without a lifeguard?" The director smirked a little.

"She's never been to school?" Dad asked.

"Homeschooled. Orphan… Not even from this universe," I said after a second of deliberation. The director glared for a second. She didn't want that getting out, but it's not like I signed an NDA or anything so it's not like there was anything she could do about it.

"Si-Taylor, I thought we weren't supposed to talk about that?" Ashley questioned.

"I know, and maybe it's for the best if we don't tell everybody, but we're friends now so you're probably going to be seeing my Dad a lot so it'd make sense for him to know the truth."

"Oh, okay!" She happily agreed.

"Another universe?" Dad asked. "Seriously?"

"Yep. Heroes and powers and stuff are different where I'm from." Ashley added, still happy. "Apparently the military never experimented with super-soldiers here. Weird, right?"

"You're joking, right?"

"No, Mister Hebert, they aren't," the director said, pinching her nose again, "Armsmaster has determined that the girl isn't lying and is unlikely to be delusional. Honestly, we've suspected that something like this was possible for a while now, but… A handful of things from the past week, strange lights in the sky and a disproportionately large number of new capes appearing, do make a bit more sense now, but..."

"You know, I did see a guy who looked a bit like Morbius fighting a black guy who cussed a lot the other night, but I figured it was just some other vampire. Still could be," Ashley said matter of factly. Then she blinked and turned to the rest of us as we stared at her silently. "What? Do you not get vampires here, either?"

"...Well, that explains what happened to Skidmark..." The director admitted.

"Mister Snuggles just said that when the people were experimenting on him, he heard them talking about clones," Ashley cheerfully added. "There could be dozens or even hundreds of copies of people from my world. Ooh! I wonder if I'll get to meet and make friends with a spider-clone!?"

"Ashley?" I asked, "how much do you know about the superhumans of your world?"

"A lot about a little and a little about a lot," she said with a smile.

I smiled. "Director Piggot?" I asked, "I have to imagine that information about… Let's be conservative and say a dozen new wild cards here and elsewhere in the country might be worth a few perks, right?"

The director's eyes narrowed. "I suppose it might."

I smiled as the gears began turning in my mind and tugged at the collar of my costume. "This is black widow silk. I made it myself. This much, this finely crafted… I'd say that this is worth at least a couple hundred dollars, maybe a little more since I'm the only one who can make seamless costumes out of organic spider-silk. Throw in that this stuff is knife proof if you weave it tight enough and could probably stop a small caliber bullet from going too deep, that adds to the practical value, doesn't it?"

"I suppose it does."

Dad looked at me for a second, then his eyes widened with realization.

"And if I could get my hands on some Darwin's bark spiders, well, that silk is much stronger... I'm sure that there'd be something special for a Ward who provided her teammates, the Protectorate, and maybe even the PRT agents with protective outfits and costumes. Especially in a city like this."

"Yes, I suppose that a Ward who provided such a service to the PRT would be entitled to some extra benefits," the director admitted. "But that would be something to discuss later."

"Yes, it would," Dad interrupted. "Because unless those perks come in the form of custom negotiated contracts, there's really no guarantee that the children would see any of them. And it's a little late in the evening to be negotiating contracts. I'm thinking that if this is how things are going to go, it might be best for us to go home, sleep on it, think about our options, and get back to you in a few days."

Ashley yawned.

The director looked at my Father. "Mister Hebert… That name sounds a little familiar. I think I've heard you mentioned while dealing with a few city officials. What is it that you do for a living?"

"I'm the Head of Hiring and Union Spokesperson for the Dock Workers' Association," Dad began. "Negotiating contracts, getting jobs for people and making sure they're getting fair wages and benefits. It's what I do, and I'm the best there is at it."

Ashley's eyes widened for a second, then I caught her mutter "so close."

The director's eyes widened, just slightly. "Ahh, yes. Now I remember. Alright. I'd hoped that this matter could be taken care of quickly, but between the complexity of the situation and new information it seems, that's not possible. If I'm going to be honest, while the Wards are nominally under my direct supervision it's the deputy director who handles their day to day affairs, it's just that he'd already gone home for the evening when your daughter and her new friend were brought in."

"Perfectly understandable," Dad said in an agreeable tone.

"Now, if you're planning to come back you can call this number," the director said as she wrote something down on a pad of paper, "and give this passcode, and that'll get you patched through so you can schedule an appointment with Deputy Director Renick," she finished as she tore the sheet from the pad and handed it to my Dad.

He read it. "I'd like to report a crime: The Siberian molested my penguin?" He blinked. "You need to work on your secret passwords."

"They have to be things that aren't likely to be said by accident, Mister Hebert," the director said with a half smile. "Now the only thing remaining is what to do with our little friend here."

My stomach sank. "What do you mean?"

"What I mean, Miss Hebert," the woman began, "is that I can't provide her with the accommodations that an orphaned Ward would get unless she's in the program. So unless she's willing to give up her insistence that she not join without you, where she'll be staying for the next few days is an issue."

Ashley's arm immediately snaked around my own, her fingers clasping mine.

"Ashley?" I said, taking the hint, "Would you like to stay with me and my Dad for a few days?"

"Yeah, I'd like that," she answered slowly.

"Dad? Can she stay with us for a few days?"

"A few days shouldn't be too much trouble," Dad replied warmly.

The director looked like she wanted to protest, but thought better of it within seconds of the thought crossing her mind. "Alright then," she said, "if that's all decided then I'll make a note to inform Deputy Renick to expect your call."

"Very good," Dad said. "Oh," he said as we all got up, "as a fair warning, I _may_ ask my friend Alan Barnes, a lawyer at the firm that Brandish works for, for his recommendation of a discrete, competent Lawyer for these kinds of things. Just in case." For a brief second, I could have sworn that the director's eyes bulged out of her head.

We stepped out of the office, and then it occurred to me. "Wait, I've got to find somewhere to change back into my civilian clothes."

"Um," Ashley said, "I just remembered… I don't have clothes other than..." She gestured to her costume/symbiote. "I mean, I used to have a hospital gown, but it kept getting in the way, so-" she was cut off by her entire body being engulfed by her symbiote's shiny, gooey mass, with the shape, color, and texture rapidly changing until it settled into a light blue t-shirt, a darker blue, knee-length skirt, solid black tights underneath, and regular looking sneakers. The color and texture of her clothes were slightly off, but if I didn't know better I'd say she was just an ordinary little girl and not a superhero to be with a living alien costume.

She blinked, then looked down at her own chest. "Mister Snuggles," she said, "why don't you tell me you can do these things you do!?"

I couldn't help it, I laughed. Dad looked at her, and then me, but I just said: "I'll explain later."

 **Snuggles the Symbiote**

Ashley had been impressed with our old house with its creaky floors since it was the first time she'd ever set foot in a proper house. She'd suddenly been exhausted once we got home, and with a bit of prompting she'd admitted that she'd last slept two days ago in a refrigerator box. After that confession, I'd gotten her tucked away in my bed, with minimal fuss and Mister Snuggles transforming again, into a comfortable looking set of red and blue pajamas with a spider-web pattern.

Afterward, I'd gone down to the kitchen, made some toast and jam and heated up some water for a cup of tea. Dad came in just as I was taking my first sip and sat opposite of me at the table.

"I tracked down an old sleeping bag," he opened with, awkwardly. "It's on the couch when you're ready."

"Thank you," I replied just as awkwardly.

"How long?" He asked.

"...Since the locker," I answered.

He sighed. "I wish you'd told me about this… Hero stuff."

"I didn't want you to worry," I said.

"I was plenty worried tonight when I realized you weren't here."

I felt a bit of guilt build up in my stomach. "Sorry… It's not like we've been talking a lot lately, though."

"I know," he admitted. "That's something we should work on."

"It is."

"...When you were talking about looking out for her," Dad said with a gesture upstairs, "you had this look on your face." He smiled. "You were the spitting image of your mother from when you were eight and we found out that the summer camp we sent you to lost you in the woods for a day."

I could remember that. In hindsight, I was really lucky that wolf hadn't eaten me.

"There's a bit more to it than what I said," I began. "Like, throwing a girl with no experience with this kind of thing headfirst into teenage drama is a big deal, but… I didn't want to say this in front of the director, but I kind of get the impression that she's not used to talking to children like they're actual children." I took a bite of my toast. "And she kind of implied that my being too young to join the Wards without your permission was a problem and was a bit too quick to point out that the PRT could easily become Ashley's legal guardian and it just kind of rubbed me the wrong way."

"I can understand why it would," Dad agreed.

"I looked into the Wards a little, but they're basically the last thing I figured I'd do as part of my hero career." I laughed. "Like, top of my head example, I could see myself joining a group of villains with the intent of going undercover and taking them down from within before I joined the Wards."

"Alright then," Dad said neutrally.

"After Winslow, the last thing I need is more teenage drama, and more rules to follow being written and enforced by people who probably don't remember what it's like to be my age, who probably don't actually give a damn about me, and who'll probably side with the other guy if I have a problem with someone… But somebody's gotta look out for her, and I'm here and she already likes me, so..." I sipped my tea. "If I'm gonna do it, I might as well do it on my terms."

"Taylor," Dad began, "if there's one thing I've learned through years of negotiating with the City and activism on behalf of the Association, it's that there's nothing wrong with using the government or accepting its help if it's genuine, but that you should never trust it or it's representatives further than you can throw them, if that." I took that to mean he was agreeing with me. "I'll talk to Alan in the morning. He can keep a secret pretty well and while it's not exactly his specialty, he knows a bit child custody."

I blinked. "What are you getting at?"

"After everything you just said," Dd asked, "do you really trust that the PRT will make decisions that are in her best interest should they become her guardian?"

"Not a lick, but… Can we actually just keep her?"

"I think with Alan's help, or the help of a lawyer he recommends, that I can navigate any legal red tape in my way and at least find out." He looked thoughtful for a minute. "And what's that group? The Youth Guard? If necessary, we can try to get them on our side. I have to imagine that living in a proper house with a family she's already close to would be better for a little girl's mental wellbeing than living on what's basically a military base twenty-four seven."

"Yeah," I agreed. That sounded like a plan.

"Granted, taking in another mouth… Money's tight right now," Money had been tight for a while, actually, "but if we do this the legal way, well, foster homes get a stipend to help cover the cost of feeding and clothing the children, which should make it less of a squeeze."

"The Wards get a paycheck," I offered, "I'm not sure off the top of my head how much it is, but I can contribute part or all of mine for grocery money."

"Especially if I can negotiate you a good deal on those silk costumes," Dad added with a smile.

"Yeah… Are you sure that Alan can keep a secret? Like, even from his family?" I thought of my former friend Emma, who'd abandoned and bullied me out of nowhere starting the summer before high school. She might back off if she realized I had powers, but I was incredibly wary of risking it, and that wasn't even considering that her dad might know what she's doing. "I mean, this Secret Identity stuff is serious business, and the more people who know, the bigger the risk that it could get out."

"I've known Alan for a long time," Dad said, "if I tell him to keep something, especially something this big, a secret, he'll keep it secret from everyone." Dad sounded so sure, I couldn't help but trust his judgment, at least for now, but still... "But maybe we should finish this talk tomorrow. It's… Early," he finished. The wall clock said it was past two. "If you're that concerned about secrecy, we can go over how to talk to him or if it's even the best idea to have him help in the morning, but we'll probably need some kind of legal help if we want to keep her with us."

"I guess." I finished my tea and toast, bid Dad goodnight, then took the sleeping bag and went back up to my room. As I arranged the bag on the floor as quietly as I could, I looked at the girl peacefully sleeping in my bed and put my worry out of my mind for the night. If we could actually pull this off, then maybe the trouble would be worth it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

I awoke to the sound of creaking bedsprings and fearful murmuring. At first, it took me a second to remember why I was on the floor before the last night's events came back to me. I shot up to find Ashley sleeping fitfully in my bed. The morning light was pouring in through my window, this was later than I usually got up. I wasn't sure what else to do, so I just grabbed the younger girl by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake.

Ashley snapped awake all of a sudden and flinched away at the contact. She was breathing heavily… despite having claimed not to need to breathe last night, and pulled her arms and legs in tight and her eyes darted around the room for a moment.

I didn't know what to do, but eventually her eyes settled on me, she sighed and calmed down a bit.

"Sorry," she said quietly.

"No, I'm sorry," I replied, "I woke you up and didn't think that maybe you wouldn't..." Damn it, how was I supposed to say this?

"Oh, it's okay." After a moment, she tilted her head. "...Why did you wake me up?"

"You looked like you were having a nightmare."

"No, I wasn't!" Ashley replied a bit too quickly while avoiding eye contact.

I didn't press the issue, instead, I checked my clock. Yeah, it was a bit late for my morning jog. I looked back at the girl in my bed and decided that I could skip one day. "So, Ashley…" I wanted to change the subject but couldn't think of something… Then I remembered her Cape Geek tendencies, "so last night you said that there were a bunch of different kinds of Superhumans where you're from. We've really only for the one kind here. Well, here we call them Parahumans," I explained, "or Capes. I'm a little curious, could you tell me a little bit about the different kinds from where you're from?"

"Oh," she perked up, "yeah. Uh… There's mutants like me, and symbiote hosts, also like me," she said counting off on her fingers, "and mutates like… Actually, there's like a bajillion kinds of mutates-Spider-People, cosmic ray mutates, goblins, gamma ray mutates, Super-Soldiers, artificial mutants…." Her face scrunched up. "I think that's all the important ones, and there's unique ones too. There's like a dozen kinds of aliens-OG Captain Marvel was a Kree, current Captain Marvel I think is half-Kree or something and the Skrulls invade the earth every so often." I had no idea what either of those were. "There's magic people, Like Doctor Strange or the Scarlet Witch, and people who become Mutates because of magic instead of science…" Magic? She scrunched up her face even more. "Should I count vampires? There's at least two kinds: The normal kind and serum that turns you into 'living' ones but I don't know the difference and I think Morbius is the only living one. Uhh… Immortal Iron Fist is kind of like those martial artists in the Japanese cartoons..." She trailed for a second but held up a finger to stop interruptions, "I think werewolves are a thing but there's different kinds-I've seen pictures of Manwolf and I've seen pictures of Werewolf-By-Night and they don't look the same. Then there's the Inhumans, who are kind of jerks, and their descendants the Nuhumans, who are kinda like mutants except instead of getting their powers automatically they get it from clouds of this weird gas that the Inhumans let out because it gives people Super Powers if they've got the Inhuman Gene but it kills mutants and the Inhumans don't seem to care about that." She sounded a little angry, and I felt angry for her if there were people out there who were fine with people like her dying so they and others like them could get powers... "And then there's guys like Thor or Hercules, who are like, _the_ Thor and Hercules."

I blinked. " _The_ Thor and Hercules?"

"The Gods," she explained cheerfully, "from the legends. I don't know if there's a difference between the Asgardians and the Olympians other than who was worshipped where, but I know that they're both real and a couple of each are Superheroes or Villains in the modern day. I think Loki's both."

I wanted to question that but thought better of it. "Okay then..."

"Actually, my Grandpa Patrick used to say that we were Thorites," Ashley continued, "but we still celebrate Christmas and Easter and Mommy said once or twice that he only said that because he was in a bar when Thor and Wolverine came in and Thor bought a round."

I blinked. Superheroes just going out drinking in costume? But still, I kind of had to ask. "How… how do Thorites worship?"

"Celebrating jovially," she said as though quoting someone, "drinking, but I'm not old enough for that, and whomping on bad guys with hammers."

"Seriously?"

"Okay, okay," she admitted, "the hammer's optional."

I sighed. "Okay then." Then a thought occurred to me. "You were really excited when you realized that you could be a hero… Is that why?"

It seemed to take her a second to get what I meant. "Oh, no… Actually… This is a little embarrassing," she said with a blush and looked down. "When I… I was sick all the time, I didn't get out much. I did my homeschooling work, some video games when I wasn't feeling too crummy, but otherwise, I was just reading stuff. Books, articles online, that kind of thing." She looked back up. "Also I wrote a couple of fanfics, but that's not really relevant. Anyway, what mostly drew my attention were things about superheroes." She scooted to one end of my bed and I sat down next to her. "Like, a long time ago, I think before I was born, this guy called The Champion showed up and challenged all the Earth's greatest heroes for reasons I don't know but it would somehow have been bad if he'd beaten them all. Ben Grimm, the Thing, was the only one who was able to defeat him, not because he was stronger than him, or faster, or a better fighter, but because he was just so determined not to lose that he kept getting back up no matter how badly he was beaten and the Champion admitted that he'd never be able to truly beat him and left."

"Really now?" I asked, trying to keep her talking. I wasn't _super_ -geeky about this stuff, but I was still interested in capes and she seemed happy enough to be talking about it.

"Yeah," she said, "and one time, I read a statement a Holocaust Survivor gave in an interview, about how she'd consigned herself to die in the camps until the day the allies led a rescue mission with a tank forcing the fence down and soldiers there to fight off Nazis and save everyone and in the front leaping over the part of the fence that wasn't knocked over was Captain America, a nazi's bullets bouncing off of his mighty shield." She smiled, "I must have read that article a hundred times because the way the woman described just… I can't really explain it, I can't remember the words she used, but just how determined Captain America was to save everyone and end the suffering."

"He had a shield?" Why would you give a soldier a shield?

"Yeah!" She said, "he doesn't believe in killing unless it's absolutely necessary. He didn't carry a gun during the war and some sources say that he never even once killed an enemy soldier," she explained. Honestly, she kind of sounded like Greg Vader ranting about whatever video game or Anime he was into this week, except about something that was actually interesting. "He didn't really need a gun, since the Super-Soldier Serum made him immortal and like, as strong and fast as it's possible for a normal human to get and he's got a special indestructible shield made of vibranium-based proto-adamantium, the most indestructible metal in the universe," she finished with a geeky smile. "And then there's Spider-Man," she finished with just a hint of reverence.

"The one who caught you when you fell out of the window?" I asked, more to be conversational than because I couldn't remember.

"Yeah!" She said with a big smile, "he's my favorite," obviously. "I read his official biography, _Webs_ , like a million times! He wasn't always a hero," she explained, her mouth moving a mile a minute, "when he first got his powers, he tried to use them to make money by entering a pro-wrestling tournament and beating some guy named… Uh, I can't remember who he was," she admitted sheepishly, "Crusher Hogan or Bonesaw, one of those guys, the biography didn't spend much time on the details," I raised an eyebrow at the second name. "Anyway, he won, but then the place got robbed and he didn't stop the robber because he was just a wrestler," she got super serious, "the biography was kind of vague, since Spider-Man's got a secret identity, but according to secondhand interviews via his friend Peter Parker, basically that robber went and killed someone he loved. After he realized, he decided then and there that nobody else would suffer or die because he was there when something went wrong and he didn't try to help. He became a Superhero because he had the power to stop criminals and help people and, and this is the exact words in the book, 'he learned the hard way that with Great Power there must also come Great Responsibility,' and then he took that as his personal motto."

"That," I began, not sure how to go from there, "that's a bit intense."

"Yeah," she said a bit sadly, "A lot of bad stuff happens to him, but he turns his pain and mistakes into ways to help more people-He was a teen when he started and I've found stuff by a lot of teen heroes that says that he gives good advice based on his own experiences, and a lot of places I've read have said that he's a good influence on people. And if there's something wrong, and he knows about, and he can help, then he _will_ help. And he never gives up. And Captain America never gives up, and the Thing never gives up. They just keep going until the fight is won and the problem is solved. They're the most looked up to, the most befriended, the most inspiring Heroes from back where I'm from. The kind of people that other people can sleep better at night knowing that they're out there. The whole world could be falling apart and then they show up and suddenly you know that everything's gonna be alright." She got wistful all of a sudden. "And I, I… I used to think that, maybe, maybe if I'd had a better power, like if I had a secondary mutation or something, if I had a power that'd let me help people, save people, protect people, that maybe I could be that kind of hero and then I could make people safe and happy," she finished with wide, starry eyes. Then she blushed again, "but that's silly, isn't it?" she said, looking at the floor.

I gave her a hug. She leaned into me. "Not really," I said, "that's a pretty good reason to want to be a hero." Honestly, it was better than mine-I wanted to help people but I also wanted some control. "Tell you what," I said, "we're gonna be heroes together, so how about we save everyone together?"

"Yeah!" She declared.

"It's gonna be hard though," I went on.

"That's okay," she replied, "Mommy always used to say that all the stuff that's important to do is gonna be a little hard. We just have to keep trying. Like Miss Marvel, she's new but she's another one who never gives up." Then she sat up and looked at me with a look of the purest determination. "We're going to need adjectives."

I blinked. "Adjectives?"

She nodded. "Lots of Heroes from back home have adjectives. 'Incredible, Amazing, Invincible, Immortal, Unbeatable, Uncanny,' and most of them-I smell bacon."

That was an interesting segue, and then I remembered the time and her enhanced sense of smell, "it's probably my Dad making breakfast."

I had Ashley step out into the hall so I could change my clothes, and then escorted her downstairs.

As predicted, Dad was in the kitchen cooking bacon. The toaster went off a second after we came in and Dad went to put it on a plate, which caused him to notice us.

"Good morning," he said awkwardly.

"Good morning, Mister… Hebert." Ashley paused like she'd forgotten but then somebody had given her the answer. Probably Mister Snuggles.

"Do you need help with that?" I asked, gesturing vaguely to the cooking he was doing.

"A little help setting the table would be nice," he said as he put more bread in the toaster.

And so I did, getting three plates and three glasses to set the table with. It seems that finding orphans on the street is the key to having a family breakfast again.

"So," Dad said, "...We've got a lot to talk about today. I can call Alan after breakfast but-"

"I'm still not sure about that," I said. "I mean, this is a big deal and-"

"What are you talking about?" Ashley asked.

I looked at her. The entire plate of bacon and toast had already been eaten. "Well, Ashley, how would you feel about staying here with us permanently?"

She sort of shrank into herself and looked down. "Uh, y-ye-yeah. I'd like that."

"Well, last night my Dad and I talked about how to make that happen," I explained, "but he thinks we might need some help with that, and wants to call his best friend Alan, who's a lawyer. But I'm not so sure that's a good idea," I continued, "since we'd have to tell him, at the very least, or maybe another lawyer our secret identities, and that's risky."

Her brow furled up in thought. "But… If he's your dad's best friend, can't we trust him?" Damn it.

"Yeah, I guess I'm just being a little paranoid. I haven't seen him in a while," I said with a fake smile.

"...Why are you being paranoid though?" She asked. "I mean if he's your dad's friend..."

"Uhh… A few months ago," I said, "some people at school… Let's just say that they hurt me bad, and the people who were supposed to be making sure that didn't happen didn't do it and haven't been doing it, and now..." I waved my hand in a circular motion, "it's a little hard to trust people."

"Okay," she said and finished her milk. "Do you trust me?" she asked, almost out of nowhere.

"Huh?" I said, taken aback, but I quickly answered "...Yeah."

"But you just met me," she said, "and you not only told me your secret identity but you're brought me into your home." She blinked. "If you can trust me that much, why can't you trust your Dad's friend?"

"That's different," I answered.

"How?"

 _'Because,'_ I thought, _'you're a lost, sheltered, orphan girl and he's the father of the bitch who betrayed me and spent the last nearly two years torturing me.'_ I sighed. "Fine. Dad, you can call Alan."

I turned back to him. He was just staring into space. "Your Principal looked me in the eye and said they'd be keeping an eye out for you after-"

Shit. "That," I interrupted, "is a problem we can deal with later. What we need to do right now is focus on one thing at a time."

He sighed and we finished breakfast in mostly silence, other than Ashley asking a few questions here and there. Afterward, Dad went to call Alan and I took Ashley up to my room to talk about the kind of things we should and shouldn't talk about when Alan was here.

 **Snuggles the Symbiote**

"So," Alan said from his seat in the living room, "Taylor, young miss, what is it that _you_ want to get out of this?" Dad had informed him of what exactly he'd needed to know, and Alan was staring warily at the black widows dangling from my fingertips. Dad stood to the side, letting Ashley and I talk with the other man.

"I'd, I'd like to stay with Taylor," Ashley said awkwardly. She was sitting next to me on the couch, her outfit back in the clothes she'd worn last night but with the addition of a gold and blue scrunchie holding her hair back in a ponytail.

"That's it?"

"Well," Ashley began, "this Ward thing is them teaching me how to be a superhero and paying _me_ for it." She blinked. "Am I going to have to go to real school?" She asked all of a sudden. When Alan shrugged, she continued, "if I have to go to school, if it's possible is there some way to skip to big kid school so I can stay with Taylor?"

"You don't want that," I interrupted.

"Yes I do," she argued.

"Okay," Alan said before we could get into a fight over this, "I don't know if I can get you something like that, but I'll see what I can do." He said in the standard adult 'we'll see' tone, "but even if I can you'd have to pass some really, _really_ hard tests," he explained as though talking to a small child. "Do you think you can do that?"

Ashley smiled. A wide, toothy, malevolent smile. "We think we can do that."

"We?"

"It has something to do with her powers," I explained quickly

"Okay then," he said, "now Taylor, what are you wanting out of this deal?"

"First," I said, "to reiterate: Nobody who doesn't need to know about this can find out about-"

"Yes," Alan interrupted, "I know. Taylor, I'm a divorce attorney. Half my job is keeping secrets and lying about things people have told me."

"Okay," I said, "it's just, this is a big deal." I took a deep breath. "My primary concern is Ashley," I said, "the way the director spoke last night makes me feel that the PRT doesn't necessarily have her best interests at heart and I would strongly prefer that she not go into her custody. I want her to get fair wages, since she has some very valuable information that the PRT wants, and I want to be able to get her _out_ if they start treating her poorly." Breathe in, breathe out, "as for me… a fair deal on the costumes I've offered and as much freedom and control of my life as I can get. I'm willing to trade pay for freedom if I absolutely have to."

Alan hummed. "That's a little vague, but I think that it's workable," he said confidently. "Now, if you want to take custody of Ashley, Danny is going to have to have to become a foster parent. Normally this is a long, detailed process, but if I remember a few things correctly, the PRT is able to speed that up quite a bit, so it'd be more productive to try and work with them than against them on this. Likewise," he continued, "Danny told me about the Youth Guard contingency you discussed last night. Calling them in with your concerns about Ashley's wellbeing in PRT custody might keep her out of their control," he explained, "but it wouldn't necessarily end with her in your custody. They could just take her into foster care in some other city." Ashley grabbed my hand at that. "However, there's one last thing for us to discuss: Specifically, whether the two of you should be physically present at this meeting."

I blinked. "What do you mean?"

"With a child of Ashley's age present as part of the negotiation," he started to explain, "the PRT's representatives might try to get her to agree to things or take advantage of her youth and naivety to undermine our position," he looked at her. "I doubt that her homeschooling program covered contract law, and they'd jump on that. As for you," he turned back to me, "while I generally think you're a smart girl, chances are the PRT is just going to see you as a teenager. They'll probably dismiss anything you say out of hand and ignore your demands, no matter how reasonable, just because you're only fifteen." My blood started to boil. "I think that the best thing to do would be for the two of you to sit this out and let your father and I handle the negotiations. With our combined training and experiences, we should easily be able to get you what you want."

I wanted to protest. I wanted to scream and demand my place in deciding my life, but… he was right. And besides, I honestly had no idea how to do this kind of thing. Knowing my luck, it'd end with someone choking on spiders. I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. "Okay."

Dad went to call the PRT to arrange the meeting, giving the silly password he'd been given.

"Taylor?" Ashley asked, "What does 'molested' mean? And why would someone do it to a penguin?"

"Uhhh..." I looked to Alan, who shook his head. No help there. "I'll explain later."

"Okay," she said cheerfully. Hopefully, I'd find some way to get out of that.

"Okay, okay, thank you," I heard dad say. He came back. "Tomorrow at noon," he explained. The meeting time. "Taylor, I know you're not going to be there, but I think I'll be calling you off of school."

"Oh, didn't you hear?" Alan interrupted. "Someone broke into Winslow last night. Stole all the chemistry supplies. The School's closed for the rest of the week."

My first thought was that it'd probably been the Merchants, the local drug-dealing scumbags, but the director had said something had happened to Skidmark after Ashley mentioned the vampire from her world, and without their leader, they might not be… Eh, whoever it was was screwed: All the gangs recruited from Winslow and wouldn't take well to it being messed with.

Alan left, saying that he'd meet Dad tomorrow before the negotiation, and I prepared myself for my worst case scenario.

 **Snuggles the Symbiot**

"Holy Shit!" I exclaimed, staring at a contract that promised me almost total freedom. Specifically, the lines that told me the size of my trust fund and paycheck.

Dad and Alan both looked incredibly smug.

I looked over Ashley's shoulder to see that she had more or less the same perks and pay. She was signing her name. "Ash-ley, Tan-Shin, Oh-Leary," she said as she was signing. Tan-Shin was hyphenated.

I blinked. "O'Leary?"

"My Grandpa Patrick was Irish," Ashley explained without prompting. "Of course, I only know that since when I was five or six I asked why he was a different color from the rest of the family," she continued sharing, "my other grandpa, Mommy's Daddy, he was Tan Shin or Shin Tan or something. I never met him, but Mommy said that she took the pieces of his name and mushed em up together till they sounded nice for my middle name." I was starting to think that maybe we'd have to work on her tendency to share like this unprompted.

I looked back at my contract, gave it one last look over-they'd put me in some vocational program and…. A transfer to Arcadia? I smiled and signed. Perhaps this wasn't going to be so bad after all.


	4. Interlude 1(Bonesaw)

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

There was nothing quite like a good vivisection to brighten Bonesaw's mood. It was something she'd needed after the weak she'd been having. Okay, yeah, she'd gotten to tinker on a couple of those people who claimed to be clones of Superhumans she'd never heard off-that guy with the laser eyes was really neat and apparently there was some reality where superpowers were genetic! Isn't that fun!? Why, if she could figure how that worked, there'd be nothing that she couldn't make. She could even do that 'combine a hundred capes into a monster that could kill an endbringer just to see the look on people's faces' thing she'd been wanting to do forever but couldn't because there's no way she could keep powers intact while combining that many brains. She'd just have to get the DNA of a hundred of these guys!

But this one, Bonesaw thought as she poked and prodded a cancerous liver, watching as tumors grew and shrank all over the mass, was extra special. There was so much she could do with Super-Cancer!

"And he still doesn't know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, even though they were bestest bros for life when the gene sample to make me got taken," the cancer-riddled man on the office desk she was using as an operating table said. "I mean, you'd think he'd read his own issues after the fact or something." He apparently thought he was a character in a comic book or something.

"I'm sorry to say," Bonesaw joked cheerfully, "but you have all of the cancer."

"Oh, I know," her latest art project said. "See, one day old mild-mannered Wade Wilson was walking down the street when he got attacked and bitten by a radioactive honey badger. Then he got injected with an experimental Super Comedian Serum, then the hospital got nuked with a gamma bomb, he fell down into a sewer where he got shot full of Cosmic Rays, and then got sealed in a cocoon after breathing in some alien fart gas. The cocoon hatched into The Ultra Super-Amazingest Immortal Superhero ever: The Incredible Doctor Fantastic Wonder Spider-McIronman, Esquire. Then he realized that that name was stupid and changed it to Deadpool."

"...Okay then," Bonesaw replied. "You don't stop talking, do you?"

"Nope!" Bonesaw's patient, the man who claimed to be cloned from this Deadpool guy, said. "Anyway, how's a cute little girl like you end up in the serial killing mad scientist business?"

"Mister Jack found me," she explained. "He recognized my potential and took me in, teaching me all about the art of murder and torture."

"...Interesting," the victim said.

"You know, this is refreshing," Bonesaw said as she called over one of her spider-boxes. "Normally my art projects scream, or curse, or cry, or call me rude names. You seem to appreciate my artistic vision."

"What can I say," the cancer-riddled clone replied, "I like kids. Anyway, I think I can see where the Ratman is gonna go with this one. You're his favorite character, so you're gonna get obsessed with-ooh, oh god that tickles," he said with a giggle as the spider-box climbed into his chest cavity and started taking samples of fluid and tissues from all of his organs. "You're gonna get obsessed with collecting mutant and mutate DNA and experimenting with it, eventually turning yourself into a Little Miss Sinister when that urge to self-modify that came with your powers gets to you… Then some stuff I'm kind of vague on will happen, you'll be the only survivor and you'll somehow get rehabilitated and end up as the adopted Sister of Skitter, Ratman's donut steel, or both even though, even though it's not really your fault that you're like this, you getting off scot-free for what you've done outside of an apocalyptic scenario is horrifically unlikely"

"Oh goodness, I hope not," Bonesaw said, confused but latching onto the part that she could understand. "Mister Jack and the others are my family, I don't know what I'd do if I lost them."

"So you love them?"

Bonesaw scoffed. "Yeah."

"And they love you?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Yes."

"All of them?"

"Yes!" Bonesaw shouted. "Well, most of them."

"Really now?"

"Okay," Bonesaw admitted, "there's one. He's new. Well, it. It insists on being called it, and says its name is Bloodbath."

"You should tell it to be careful," the cancerous clone said, "it might cut itself on that Edge."

Bonesaw giggled. "Yeah, but… He didn't really pass any of the tests to join the family. He just showed up, ate Cherish, and talked to Mister Jack and then Jack said he was one of us, but..."

"Ahh," the clone began in understanding. "Step-Parent troubles."

"Kinda, I guess. Like, he doesn't really belong here," Bonesaw explained."And he… It. He's mean. To like, everybody but Mister Jack and Crawler. And he's rude, and Mister Jack hasn't had as much time for me ever since he joined up and it's never been like that when we got a new family member before, and..."

"I get it, I get it," her patient said. "You know what Uncle Clonepool would do in your shoes?"

"What?"

"He'd run away," the so-named Clonepool said with a smile. "Come on, let me up and we'll just take off. We can be mercenary buddies! Travel the world, eat exotic food, meet interesting people and then kill them for money. It'll be great!" He looked thoughtful for a moment. "You could use you super-science to give yourself my powers, then we'll get you some vibro-laser scalpels and you can be Lady Kidpool."

"I don't think so," Bonesaw replied. "I mean, it sounds super fun, but I could never leave my family."

"Yeah, but if you leave… Well, if this Jack loves you, he'll be worried about you and try to find you while his heart is all achy that his little girl felt so unloved that she ran away." Clonepool looked up at Bonesaw with pure determination in his eyes. " _That'll_ show him for not paying attention to you."

"...Maybe, but..." Bonesaw was cut off by footsteps and someone with a scary voice poorly singing what sounded like a thrash metal version of Freebird. "Oh great, that's Bloodbath now."

"Oh God," her patient said. "I know that voice." Into the room stomped an ooze red and black skeleton man with spikes and tentacles and lots of sharp teeth. "Ah Hell," Clonepool said, "He's a clone of Cletus."

"'Lo, Wade. It's Bloodbath now," the monster said with a wide, toothy grin. He looked down, hungrily at the helpless mutate.

"Oh no," Clonepool said, "I know that look. You can't kill me in my introductory chapter. I'm Deadpool, everyone's favorite character. There'll be riots in the street!"

"'Cept you ain't Deadpool. Yer just a clone, just like me. Nobody's gonna give two fucks if I have my fun." Bloodbath made a fist that then swole and melted together, forming a hammer.

"No no no no no no no no!" Clonepool explained, suddenly very frightened. "You... You asshole! I've read your notes. If you kill me off here, I swear to God I'll spoil everything!" Bloodbath raised its hammer-fist high into the air. "Jack gets eaten alive by Zerglings!" Clonepool started struggling, but Bloodbath placed a clawed hand through his chest cavity to keep him still. "Prinnirider _is_ Riley!"

"Three..." Bloodbath began to count down, "two..."

"Taylor's Origin is-"

The fist came down, smashing Clonepool's head to a pulp and getting flesh, blood, bone, and brains all over the relatively clean desk.

"Hey!" Bonesaw complained. "I wasn't done with him!"

"Well that's just too fucking bad, now ain't it?" Bloodbath replied. Then, with a sick squelching sound, he pulled a newspaper out of his chest and threw it at her. "I talked to old Jack, pack your bags we're headin' to Chicago."

"Mysterious White and Blue feminine figure with unknown constellation emblem on chest has conversation with Scion?" Bonesaw asked as she read off the title. "Why is she wearing a fedora?"

"No, not that one ya little idiot," the monster corrected. "The one below it. Apparently, my son's here. He got into a fight with a Wizard and I want to kill him."

"...Your son or the Wizard?"

"Yes," and with that answer, Bloodbath left the room. Bonesaw sighed, finished taking her samples from Clonepool's corpse, and then packed up, all the while thinking about how much she hated that thing that was stealing her daddy away from her.


	5. Chapter 4

**Snuggles The Symbiote**

There were a lot of people at the mall. Taylor said that it wasn't really that many people, but I'd never really been around this many people before, so I stayed extra close to her. Part of our special deal with becoming Wards involved them giving us some money to make sure I was taken care of. Mister Hebert said that he'd be talking to some people he knew about putting a bedroom in the basement. Taylor said she'd have to move her black widows, which had given mister Hebert just the funniest look on his face.

While he was at work and/or talking, Taylor had taken me out to get some 'essentials' which apparently meant clothes and underwear. I don't know why they didn't just say that. Still, it'd be nice to have clothes that weren't just Mister Snuggles shape-shifted. He said it was no big deal, but it seemed kind of hard on him and he'd mentioned that he was only as good as it as he was because of ' _psionic-metamorphic cells containing what this one's host calls an x-gene_ ' that he'd been fed and that he was cheating based on those to do something that normally only a stronger and more experienced klyntar could do. I wonder if that meant he was part Mystique?

"So," I said as I gently swung my bag of 'essentials,' "what's next?"

"Well, we've still got a little time before the appointment," she said. Later today we were meeting up with image people to talk about names and costumes, then we had power testing got to officially meet our team. "Are you hungry? There's a food court here."

"A little bit," I said. I think it was getting close to lunchtime.

" _One designated Ashley could do with replenishing her body's reserves of amino acids, though doing so is not yet critical,_ " Mister Snuggles whispered in my ear.

It took me a second before I remembered what my science book said. I looked around to make sure nobody was too close. "Uh, Mister Snuggles said I should eat something with protein," I said quietly.

"We'll see what they have then," Taylor said and then we started walking.

It was maybe a minute later, I could smell lots of greasy fried stuff and a bunch of different spices when I had to stop and hold my head. "Are you alright?" Taylor asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I just felt weird for a second. Kinda like a headache in the back of my head, but instead of pain it just felt buzzy."

"That-" Taylor got cut off by someone from behind us.

"What do we have here?" came a voice like some of the mean girls on TV.

Taylor froze for a second, but then she turned around and kind of pushed me behind her.

There were three girls about Taylor's age. Two them were white with red and brown hair, one was black. The redhead was pretty and smelled like perfume, the brown haired girl was cute, with hair clips, but she needed more clothes than just the shoulderless shirt and jean-shorts, and the black girl was _kind_ of pretty but was mostly built like the girl runners that one time I tried to watch the Olympics but got bored and put on cartoons instead. She smelled like salt and metal.

Taylor had a bag too, and the redhead looked at it. She looked mean all of a sudden. "Buying new clothes? Look, Taylor, I don't think it's gonna help."

I poked around Taylor. "Actually, it's mine. Hi, I'm Ashley," I said with a friendly wave.

Taylor tensed up at the same time that the brown haired girl went "aww."

The other two girls looked back and forth between me and Taylor.

"What are you doing with a brat hanging around?" The black girl asked. She had a big smile that showed a lot of teeth.

" _That one has the gaze of a predatory organism and is faintly coated in the odor of saline and ferrous vital fluids, suggesting recent hematophagous or carnivorous feeding_ " Mister Snuggles said, " _possibly a feral snark, brood, or other violent or predatory species disguised as an earthling._ "

I rolled my eyes and thought " _Oh you!_ " back at him like on the TV.

Taylor hadn't answered the question, so I said, "I already said I'm Ashley. Taylor's gonna be my foster sister. Now, it's rude to ask things like that after someone introduces themselves until you introduce yourself."

The girl made a kind of mean looking frown, but the red-head moved up front and center. "I'm sorry about that, Sophia can get a little caught up in things," she said. "I'm Emma, this is Madison," she pointed to the girl with the brown hair. "My Dad mentioned he was helping Mister Hebert take care of a kid."

"Oh," I said, "so you're Mister Barnes' daughter?" I stuck out my hand and smiled nice and big, "it's nice to meet you."

"Same" she said and took my hand, "you know, Taylor and I go way, way back," she said while we shook, "sometime you'll have to come over and I can tell you _all_ about the kind of things she used to get up to..." she smiled nice and big, but there was something fake about it.

"Okay," I said, but I didn't really mean it. I was a little bit uncomfortable all of a sudden and I got that weird buzzy feeling again.

" _One designated Emma dangerous, but this one is not sure how_ ," Mister Snuggles said not-that-helpfully. " _Proceed with caution._ "

"Well, anyway we need to get going," Emma said, and walked off with her friends in the direction that Taylor and I had been going, where the fried spicy food smell was coming from.

Taylor was still quiet so I gave her a hug. "What's wrong with them?" I asked.

"...It's not important," she answered, "we can talk about it later…. You know," she said, "maybe the food court isn't such a good idea right now after all. There's a place in town called Fugly Bob's. Everybody who lives in Brockton Bay should eat there at least once… then, if they like it, wait at least a year for their arteries to heal before going back for more."

It took me a second to get it. "Greasy food?"

"Oh _Yeah_ ," Taylor confirmed. "How about it?"

"Okay!"

 **Snuggles the Symbiote**

Fugly Bob's was mostly burgers, but they also had a sandwich called The Count of Monte Fatso. French bread soaked in french toast batter and deep fried, then filled with chunky peanut butter, strawberry jam, chopped crispy bacon, and cream cheese and dusted with powdered sugar. It came with lots french fries.

It was delicious but I was regretting eating it with a large soda when we were running on a treadmill so the PRT people could figure out how fast we were.

"You can stop now," the guy with the clipboard said. We pushed a button he'd shown us earlier that said "cooldown" and the treadmill started slowing while he scribbled some things on the clipboard.

A little bit away from me but still where I could see was another clipboard guy who was taking notes while Taylor-sorry, Weaver-made every flying bug in the building, which was a lot, dance and form a bunch of different shapes while running on a treadmill of her own and answer questions.

"...And the capital of Wyoming is Cheyenne," she finished as the bugs shifted from a triangle to a star.

"Impressive multitasking and coordination," her clipboard guy said. "And you said you have a range of two blocks?"

"More or less," Weaver said. Then she started slowing down. She kind of looked funny

"Okay well, I think that's everything we can test for right now," he said.

Weaver nodded and the man left, leaving just us and my power testing clipboard guy.

"Okay," the guy said, "next we'll be taking information to determine your changer rating. If you could follow me?"

And we did, Taylor and us walked into a big room with lots of different stuff. It was kind of like a gym, but the exercise equipment was in the other room, except the weights but the weights here looked big and there were also sheets of metal and blocks of gel and what looked like a gun and for some reason a six-wheeled army truck.

"This," the man said, "is the Brute and Changer Training Area, or BaCTA. That's not the official name, but that's what the room is for and the real name doesn't have a fun acronym."

"Uh, Brute means really strong, right?" We asked.

"Super strength or being able to fake it, natural weapons, super toughness or regeneration," the man explained, "most changers have those powers in their alternate form, so it just made sense to have them share a dedicated training space."

Weaver was looking at the gun. "I hope you're not planning to shoot her."

"Only if she turns out to be a mid to high-level Brute," the man said. "That's something Armsmaster cooked up based on the works of a ballistics tinker from Kentucky. I have no idea how it works, but the idea is that it's good for testing if someone's bulletproof but won't hurt them too bad if they're not," he explained, "but we prefer not to use it on people who aren't tough enough because, well, it still leaves a heck of a bruise."

"So," I asked, "what do we do first?"

"I've-" he was interrupted by more people coming in.

I turned around and saw Mister Armsmaster leading in an older boy dressed in head to toe in red with a shield on his chest, another boy in solid white and covered in clocks, a boy who looked like he was trying to copy Iron Man but was dancing around Tony Stark's copyrights and trademarks, a guy that looks like some kind of future knight and a girl who was a little older than I was in something green and squigly with a skirt, visor, and armor that tried to make her look older but wasn't doing a very good job. I waved.

"I hope you don't mind the interruption," Mister Armsmaster said, looking at the man, "Smith, but I have the Wards here to meet the new recruits and we really can't time it better." He muttered something about a stupid PR stunt taking up a lot of scheduling time. I don't think he expected us to hear that. Or that anyone else did.

"It's fine," the man, Smith, said. "We're just testing out Cuddlebug's changer rating."

The girl laughed. "Cuddlebug?"

"Yeah, we're Cuddlebug," I said. The Image people had said that nobody would take 'Snuggles' seriously and my explanation that every symbiote host went by the symbiote's name didn't help. I think mentioning Venom, Carnage, Toxin, and Mania made it backfire. The only other name I could think of was the handle I'd used when I put _The Champions meet The Crystal Gems_ up on Freakin Awesome. "It's a marketing thing," I gave the reason why they'd accepted it. "Weaver has bug powers and the name 'Cuddlebug' makes it easier for them to brand up together. We talked about matching logos." I had Mister Snuggles retract the shifty blue lines that made us kind of look like a piece of marble and give out a spider-logo. Kind of like Venom's, but less scary since instead of real-looking spider-body it was mostly just an oval with eight bendy legs, four up, four down. "Kinda like this one."

I got the impression that the one with the clocks was staring at me… "You're a changer, right? Are you… You're… Uh… I really don't want to say the wrong thing, but..."

"Technically it's my costume that's the shapeshifter," I said and he kind of relaxed. "Except he's not a costume. He's symbiote. His name is Mister Snuggles."

" _This one would prefer it if you clarified that this one is technically without what you know to be sex or gender and is thus most accurately referred to by 'it' pronouns,_ " Mister Snuggles whispered into my ear

"And he wants me to tell you that he's technically an 'it' but I don't call him it because calling him it would be rude."

" _This one still doesn't understand the one called Ashley's obsession,_ " Mister Snuggles said in the kind of way that people shrugging on TV do.

"Okay then," Clockface said like he didn't know how to respond to that.

"Anyway," Armsmaster said, "These two," he said with a gesture to me and Weaver, "are the two partners who helped me bring in Lung the other day and are joining the team. Introduce yourselves."

"Clockblocker," the boy with the clocks said.

"I'm Gallant," the robo-knight said, "it's nice to meet you."

"Vista," the girl said, "do either of you like basketball?"

"Now's probably not the time, Vista," mister red and shield said, "I'm Aegis, I'll be your team leader."

"And I'm Kid Win," the knock-off Ironman finished.

"There are two other members of the team," Aegis explained, "But Browbeat couldn't be here and Shadow Stalker is AWOL right now."

"Well, it's very nice to meet you," I said. "So uh, what next?"

"I think the idea is that we just spend some time together, ask each other questions, and just get to know each other," Weaver explained. "How much are we allowed to divulge about Cuddlebug's specific situation? I know she doesn't want to keep it a secret from anyone she's going to be working with, but..."

"We've discussed it with legal," Mister Armsmaster said, "as it details her personal history, it's covered by the standard NDA that protects the Wards identities. Cuddlebug," he smiled kind of funny when he said my hero name, "can tell as little or as much as she wants."

"Okay!" I shouted, "so the night Weaver and I helped beat up that dragon guy who was gonna kill a bunch of kids and his pet fuzzy naked blue spider-lady, I punched him in the groin, was also the night I found out that that I got hurled from the universe I was born into this one. Mine's had superheroes since the forties and there's a bazillion kinds, which are mostly because of genetic mutations except when they're magic or aliens."

They were all looking at me like I was crazy.

"...Okay then," Clockblocker said, "So you're some kind of mutant from another dimension who can make living costumes?"

"Well, no, I didn't make-"

"I don't think you should just call her a mutant," Gallant interrupted, "even if she does have a mutation-"

"No," I interrupted, "mutant is the preferred term. Well, for the kind that, um, I am," I hadn't wanted to say that I was a mutant specifically, but… "Or Homo Superior, but that one's bad science and really doesn't make sense since most mutants aren't much better than normal humans or other superhumans so I prefer mutant." I noticed that I wasn't looking at any of them and looked up. "But I didn't make Mister Snuggles. He's a symbiotic alien that partnered up with me because my mutation makes me a good match for him."

" _As well as due to the physiological and psychological compatibility between this one and one designated Ashley. As well as the similar histories and experiences. As well due to this one having_ fondness _for one designated Ashley._ "

"Thank you Mister Snuggles. Uh, could you wave hello?" He popped out one of those Doc Ock looking tentacles from behind my right shoulder and gave a friendly wave. "The proper name for his species is Klyntar, after the planet they come from."

"..You know that sounds crazy, right?" Vista sked.

"Yeah," I answered, "and everyone being the exact same kind of superhuman with no magic or aliens sounds crazy to me." I pointed at her. "You're the universe where Michael Jackson is still alive and never got that disease that made him turn white. I'm not the weird one here."

About half of them started laughing.

"As far as we can tell," Mister Armsmaster said, "Cuddlebug is telling the truth. In fact, we have reason to believe that other people from her universe of origin have also arrived on Earth Bet. Just… For the time being, we'd prefer to keep this a secret from the general public."

"The Image people said that officially I'm a 'Combat-Focal Hybrid Tinker specializing in biomechanical nano-tech and organic metals and Mister Snuggles is a multipurpose combat nano-suit with an onboard AI that's bonded directly to my physiology.' " I shared. "I understand about half of those words."

"Speaking of which," Mister Smith said, "we really do need to test… His abilities. It's my understanding that you can make claws?"

I had Mister Snuggles shift them out. They didn't go "snikt" like mutant claws are supposed to, so I made the sound with my mouth.

"Thank you," he said, "now I need to take some measurements," he said, grabbing a couple of tools and coming over. "This shouldn't take long, you can keep talking." Then he started measuring how long my claws were and tapping them and examining the points.

"So, Weaver, right?" I could see that Aegis had gone over to talk to T-Weaver up close. "I can't help but notice that your costume seems kind of… Ruined."

"Yeah, it turns out that black widow silk is _not_ fire or acid proof," she said, "after we're done here, we'll be stopping by costuming to see about getting me something to use until I can make a replacement." Aegis nodded but then Taylor went on, "Oh, by the way, once we're settled in if anybody wants a costume or under-armor made of Spider-Silk, just talk to costuming and they'll give me the details." A couple of the Wards looked thoughtful.

"Cuddlebug?" Kid Win said as he came up to me, "first, let me say that I like your… Color scheme. Dark blue on gold, it's got a lot of significance here because of Hero but not a lot of people tap that."

" _Was yellow,_ " Mister Snuggles whispered in my ear. " _Was exposed to energy, changed color to gold, altered organic metal particles._ " I thought back at him that I'd bring it up if I could work it into the conversation.

"Yeah, Image said that too," I replied to Kid Win, "I still think it's weird that you guys had a hero _named_ Hero," I said. "And that he died and stayed dead. That doesn't usually happen where I'm from."

He was quiet for a second. "...Heroes don't stay dead where you're from?"

"Not usually," I answered. "Villains either. At least the major ones. Some of them, like Jean Grey, are kind of famous for it." I thought about it for a second. "The only major hero I know of who died and stayed dead is the original Captain Marvel and he had cancer so I don't think that counts."

"Ahhh… eh… Un Ahh-anyway," Kid Win said awkwardly, "I just wanted to ask, earlier you specified that mutant is the term for what 'you' are. Are there other names for different kind of mutations."

"Okay," I said as Mister Smith continued poking and prodding my claws, "I kind of already explained a bunch of this the other night,but the gist of it is that mutant refers specifically to people with what's called an X-Gene, which is an extra gene that some people in my universe have. If your mutation is caused by something else, you're called a mutate… Unless you're a latent or artificial mutant, then you're both."

"...How can one gene cause Superhuman powers?"

"Uhh..." I wracked my brain. My science books hadn't gone in depth but I googled it once. "Uh, I think the idea is that, if you have an active X-gene, it like… Like, your genes code for proteins that your cell makes, right? Apparently, the X-gene codes for a protein that works like a mutagen. It gets into your system and changes around your other genes and that's what gives you powers. It also means that if you've got an active X-Gene, you're not technically human." Why did I say that? Why, why did I say that? "I mean, scientifically. It's kind of like uh, uh… Like a dog. A dog isn't considered the same species as a wolf even though they can make babies together and the first dogs were born from wolves… Except not every mutant is as changed as another and every mutant is difference unless you've got some other special gene or you're one of those ones that runs in families and a lot of the epsilon level mutants are like, really ugly or disabled and have sucky powers so they're not likely to have kids at all and-"

"Epsilon?" Kid asked. "The Greek Letter?"

"Yeah," I said, "somebody used a Greek letter system to come up ways to describe different mutants….But uh, I'm not 100% sure that all of them are official. Off the top of my head, omega level is the scary one you hear about all the time, with the super duper powerful mutants who can like, lift the Brooklyn Bridge with their minds or something, alphas are the lucky ones who get a power that's really useful but isn't scary overpowered and they've got perfect control of it so they can pass for human if they want to, and epsilons-"

"Cuddlebug," Mister Smith said, "you're shaking a little. I need you to hold still while I finish examining your claws."

"Sorry. Epsilons mutated bad so they get sucky powers or even no powers while being hideously deformed or severely disabled. Those are the only ones I know off the top of my head." And I only knew epsilon because, well, one time when I was getting a check-up the Doctor'd said epsilon while checking my file and I googled it when I got home.

"So you're an Alpha mutant?"

"No… I'm…"

"Kid," Gallant said all of a sudden, "you're making her uncomfortable."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Kid said. He sounded like he meant it. I could see that Weaver was staring at him, too.

"S'okay."

"You'll have to forgive Kid Win here," Gallant said as he came up to me. "He's a Tinker. Get him interested in something science related and he'll focus on it until something else catches his eye."

"Yeah, Sorry again," Kid Win said with a cheesy smile. "Bio's not even my thing I don't think. There's really no excuse for..."

'It's okay. I like your armor," I said. I needed to talk about something else, and besides, it was true.

"Thank you," Kid Win said, "I built it myself."

"Cool!" I said. It was nice to be talking about something fun. "It kind of reminds me of a hero from back home called Iron Man. Have you ever thought about putting laser beams in the gloves?"

"I am now," he answered while looking at his armored hand. "Could you tell me more about this Iron Man guy?"

"He's a billionaire playboy and CEO of a company that invents all kinds of technology, a lot of which he did himself." I started. There weren't many people who didn't know the story of Tony Stark. "Originally he pretended to be his own bodyguard who got paid in gadgets to fight monsters and supervillains with, but eventually, he went public. He's got dozens of suits of powered armor that he switches out between as needed, the first of which he built in a cave from parts of a missile, and a lot of the newer ones can swap parts around or reshape themselves." Kid Win hummed. "Also, according to , he paid a lot of people a lot of money to licenses out that one Black Sabbath song indefinitely even though the song's Iron Man is nothing like the real one."

That made Kid Win laugh.

"Okay Cuddlebug, now you see those cubes of ballistics gel?" Mister Smith said, pointing to the gel cubes. I nodded. "I'm gonna set one of those up and then I want you to slash it a couple of times, okay?" I nodded again.

While he was bringing it out, I heard Weaver talking to Vista.

"...And if we can get just one more girl we'll have even numbers and the Director will look over my powered basketball proposal." Vista said.

"Interesting," Weaver said evenly.

"Anyway," Vista continued, "what exactly is the deal with you and Cuddlebug?"

"Officially," Weaver said, "Cuddlebug's my little sister. That's really all I'm willing to disclose before I get to know you guys better." I smiled. Taylor would be an awesome big sister.

The gel cube was set up on a table with a camera nearby and Mister Smith waved me over. "Okay, I want you to start with one good swipe."

I took my right hand and back and scratched at the cube as hard and as fast as I could and cut what looked like a couple of inches deep and a couple inches wide. Mister Smith looked at it and took a ruler to the scratch-the opening and how deep it was.

"Huh," he said as he scribbled it down on his clipboard. "Your claws left a mark just a little bigger than they should have based on these measurements. By the way," he said looking at me, "you probably shouldn't use your claws against an unarmored human who doesn't have a high defensive brute rating. This stuff," he smacked the cube, "is about as dense as human flesh and reacts the same way. You'll kill someone if you're not careful."

"Oh, uh, Okay," I said, "we won't." I felt this weird sour-sick feeling in my tummy.

" _One designated Taylor is glaring at one designated Smith,_ " Mister Snuggles added helpfully.

'Now," Mister Smith said, not noticing that Weaver was glaring at him apparently, "I've got a stopwatch here," he pulled it from his pocket, "and when I say go, I want you to shred as much of this gel cube as you can in thirty seconds. Okay?" I nodded, and after a moment he said: "go!"

And then I turned my brain off and furiously swiped at the cube of gel until I heard him say stop.

There was no gel left, but there was one hell of a mess with a really thin sticky layer on the table and what looked like chewed jello all over the floor around the table.

"Remind me never to piss you off," I heard Vista say.

I turned out just in time to see Mister Armsmaster look to her and say "Watch your language."

Mister Smith was scribbling on his clipboard. "Okay, I want to test your claws against a steel plate and then we should be done with them." This one was actually pretty easy. What he did was bring over a metal sheet about as thick as a stack of four dimes and as tall and wide as a floor tile and asked me to try scratch clean through it in one go. I cut it into five strips pretty easy.

"Now," Mister Smith said, "the other major thing you can do is the tentacles and the tail, right?"

"Yeah"

"About how strong do you think they are?"

" _This one can generate appendages roughly equal in physical capacity to one designated Ashley's natural manipulator limbs when augmented by this one,_ " Mister Snuggles said.

"Mister Snuggles says they're about as strong as my arms," I translated.

"Okay Cuddlebug," he said, "what's the biggest you think you can lift?" He pointed to the big weights and the truck. I thought about it for a second, then walked over and lifted the truck up above my head.

It actually felt heavy, just a little bit, and after a few seconds, I had to set it back down. "I think that's about as much as we can lift right now."

"Okay," Mister Smith said while writing that down on his clipboard, "and that truck weighs just over five imperial tons."

Five tons? That was like, half as much as Spider-Man. Which means that… I should be as strong as Spider-Man when I grow up! Yay!

"Now, the only thing left to test is how well you can bring it all together-"

"Someone's coming," I interrupted. I could hear footsteps in the hallway and could smell people, and one of them smelled like salt and metal.

A second later an agent in armor came in with a girl dressed head to do in dark clothing-a solid black lady-face mask, black armor, and a black and grey spotted cloak. And she smelled exactly like that Sophia girl from the mall earlier.


	6. Chapter 5

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

"Shadow Stalker," Mister Armsmaster said when Sophia came in, "you're late."

"Sorry," she said gruffly, "I didn't see the memo until today and when I saw it I was with a civvie friend and couldn't get away easy."

Mister Armsmaster hmmed. "Alright then. These are your new teammates." He gestured to me and Weaver. "Introduce yourselves please."

"I'm Weaver," she said raising her hands. "I control bugs. If you want a spider-silk costume, take it up with costuming and they'll give me your information."

"I am Cuddlebug and I like hugs," I said. "We shapeshift and do big strong-guy stuff." We called up our claws again. "Snikt! See?"

"...Okay, three questions: One," Shadow Stalker said, "Why Cuddlebug? Two, why are you talking in plurals, and three, why did you say 'snikt?' "

"Image, there's two of us in here, and because my claws don't go snikt on their own," I answered. "Mister Snuggles, wave hi."

" _Perhaps this one should just keep the biomechanical appendages deployed for the remainder of this time period?_ " Mister Snuggles asked. He sent out an Ocktacle and waved anyway.

"I am missing some context here," Shadow Stalker said.

"I'm a mutant from another universe and my costume's an alien but the director doesn't want people to know that so keep it quiet, okay?" I made a shushing motion. The whole rest of the team already knew I was a mutant so maybe if I acted like it was no big idea she wouldn't think it was either.

"Okay then," Shadow Stalker said, "So, Weaver… Nice costume. What happened to it?"

"Lung and his pet spider-woman," Weaver replied. "I'll be weaving a replacement soon. It won't look like this," she pointed to me, "Image wants us in matching costumes. I'm thinking black, blue or purple on white."

"Lung...Wait, was that you the other day?" Shadow Stalker asked, "I heard that he got wrecked so bad that he almost died."

"Oh, no," Weaver said, "he wasn't that badly hurt when we left him."

"...Well actually," Mister Armsmaster interrupted, "there was an unexpected reaction between my tranquilizer and the venoms in his system. While it'd be a stretch to say he almost died, if there'd been a little more brown recluse in there he might have suffered serious or even fatal injury. I'm already working on reformulating my tranquilizers to prevent any further accidents."

"Oh," Weaver said. I jumped up over everyone and landed next to her and gave her a hug. She sounded like she needed a hug.

"Anyway, " Mr. Smith said, "we were just finishing with Cuddlebug's power testing. Up next is toughness… Aegis, could you punch her as hard as you can?"

"If she's okay with it," Aegis answered.

 _"This one's biomass and ability to subtly manipulate its density should be sufficient to repel small projectiles of extreme velocity."_ Yeh, that matched what I'd learned about symbiotes when I googled Agent Venom that one time.

"Mister Snuggles says that we're bulletproof," I stepped back from everyone and held my arms out. "Come at me, bro." I heard someone give an awkward laugh.

Aegis came up to me, took a deep breath, posed, and punched me right in the middle of the chest with a grunt. Then something made a cracking sound. A really loud one.

"Ah, uh, um… Aegis?" I asked, "I don't think your arm is supposed to bend that way. Especially in that place… Uh, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said quickly, "it's actually part of my power. I'm what's called an Alexandria package, do you know who Alexandria is?"

"Yeah, she's really strong, really tough, and can fly super fast," Taylor had given me the rundown on all the super stuff that everybody knew so I could better do my cover.

"Okay, so I can fly, and people _think_ I'm super strong and tough, but the way my power really works is that I can use my full strength without hurting myself and when I do get hurt, my body adapts so that I can keep going till it heals." He then made his arm kind of squirm like a short tentacle with a couple of little tentacles at the end. It was kind of gross.

I looked at it, then back up at him "...Does it hurt?"

"That's part of my power," he said, "I can't feel pain."

"Still," Mister Armsmaster said, "there's no reason to let it go untreated when there are no urgent matters to attend to. Go to the infirmary."

"I think I can hold out until we're done here," Aegis answered back.

"That was an order."

"Okay." And then he left.

"Uh," I said, kind of feeling bad that I'd broken Aegis' arm, "what's next?"

Mister Smith had been scribbling on his clipboard. "A spar, if you're feeling up to it."

"A spar?"

"A practice fight," he explained.

"I know what a spar is, it's just… We don't want to hurt anyone."

" _This one with honesty can state that this one couldn't possibly care if these ones bring harm to others… This one believes that the term is… You. Do. You. This one will oblige._ "

"Okay, _I_ don't want to hurt anyone," I corrected, "Mister Snuggles doesn't care either way."

Shadow Stalker scoffed. "Kid, if you're worried about hurting people, you should just give up on being a hero now."

"Heroes only hurt people when they have to and as much as they have to," I countered, "because it's their job to _help_ people. Which sometimes, unfortunately, involves hurting bad people who are trying to hurt innocent people. Unless you're The Punisher, but he's a serial killer that only thinks he's a hero." I think. A lot of the websites and stuff that talked about him were blocked. The parental controls on my computer only seemed to block that and that one website that time I was doing my health homework. I know that Mommy and Daddy got upset that one time when I asked about the mutant concentration camps in Canada so I think it was supposed to block something else but didn't work.

"You sound like you're quoting a boy scout," Shadow Stalker said in reply.

"I got it from a guy who was a Brigadier General in the United States Army during World War Two." Kind of. I was kind of paraphrasing a bunch of stuff I'd read that Captain America and Spider-Man had said, and Captain America was called Captain because Brigadier General America wasn't as catchy, so technically I wasn't lying. "And anyway, I don't need to hurt anyone right now, so why should I risk it? Especially since we're all supposed to be friends."

Shadow Stalker actually chuckled a little. I noticed that Vista kind of seemed to be glaring at her. "Look, kid, you're gonna need to know how to fight to last out here. If you're that worried about hurting someone, fight me. I _know_ you won't be able to hurt _me._ "

I looked at Weaver, then back to Shadow Stalker. "...Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"O-okay..."

Mr. Smith led us all into another room. There were mats on the floor, a couple of full-wall mirrors on the wall, and the ceiling was high up but not like, super high up, like maybe a couple of feet higher than a normal ceiling.

Mr. Smith was about to explain something, but Shadow Stalker shoved a pair of crossbows into Kid Wins arms and took her place in a big circle that was on the mats. "This room is for learning and practicing unarmed CQC. Get in the ring."

I looked back at everyone. Weaver seemed kind of glarry at Stalker and our new teammates seemed kind of resigned to this except Gallant who was just kind of standing there. Mr. Smith shrugged so I went into the ring and made fists.

"No, no, none of that," Shadow Stalker said, "you're holding your hands wrong." She held up her hand and made a fist. "See how I've got my thumb across my fist? This is how you do it." I looked down at how I had my thumbs inside. "The way you've got them now, you're gonna break something and I don't want to be held responsible for that."

I fixed my hands and held them up. "Like this?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, when you're ready," Mr. Smith said.

And then I got that weird buzzy feeling in the back of my head and jumped up and the next thing I knew I was standing upside down on the ceiling and Shadow Stalker was just a little bit past where I'd been.

"Nice," she said, "you've got good survival instincts."

Behind my mask, I had my tongue between my teeth. "Hey, Mister Snuggles? Is there anything else we can make? We've got the claws and the tentacles and the tail, but..."

" _This one has the genetic or physiological information to generate… A. Handful. Additional bio-constructs. This one suspects that this one's host will find enjoyment in these ones._ "

I felt a bit of shifting along my back, kind of like when the tentacles came out, but different. Like, between my shoulders and spine but in the middle of my back and-"oof!"

After a bit of shifty tingling, a pair of wings popped out of my back. I had to turn and twist a bit and use the mirrors to get a good look at them, but they were like… Not quite a bat… I know I've seen wings that looked like these before but I was blanking on it. Still. "EEEH! We have wings!"

I gave them a flap and let the stick-em powers Mister Snuggles gave me go and fell right to the floor. Kinda. I got the buzzy feeling again and landed on my feet. "...But we can't fly."

" _Flight appendages not strong or large enough to support these ones' full weight well enough for true flight. Should assist with long leaps or slowing descent with practice._ "

Buzzy feeling again. I sort of automatically leaped to the right to avoid Shadow Stalker coming in from my left with a grab. "Can we embiggen them like we did with my arm the night we met Weaver?".

" _Neg-_ "

"How can you dodge so well?" Shadow Stalker asked. "It's like you're not even paying attention."

"Easy: 'Cause my Spider-Sense was tingling," I said automatically. It was a joke I used to do with Mommy and Daddy sometimes and… Wait. Oh my gosh, that' the buzzy feeling. I had Spider-Sense! Okay Ashley, play it cool. "Also, Mister Snuggles was trying to speak so please be quiet for a second."

" _Negative. This one can only contribute so much biomass to each construct at this time and the genetic information this one is using to allow for such enhancement of extant biomass is rather difficult to parse and seems… Hostile to certain other samples._ " He kind of hummed in the back of my head. _"In certainty, this one believes that it would be better able to adapt to other samples and to one designated Ashley without it as reconciling it with X-Gene samples and this one's host's genetic code proves difficult._ "

"That's not good." My wings melted away as I sprouted my tail and whipped it out behind me and to my right. Shadow Stalker had gone around behind me but she couldn't sneak past my brand new spider-sense that I was totally going to geek out about later. "Anyway, what else can we do?"

" _Hold manipulator limbs down with forelimb at a ninety-degree angle, appendages designated 'hands' in the position designated 'palms up'_ "

I held my arms at my sides and out, bent at the elbow and then my hands and forearms stretched a teeny bit and turned into scoops. Then a big screw looking hinge thingy and another scoop jutted out just below my elbow and closed on the bottom scoop with a clack and I had neet pair of biomechanical pincer claws. I moved them around and punched them outward and snapped them with another 'clack clack.' "These are neat. I don't think they'll be very useful. Did they feed you another one of those meat machines for this?"

" _Affirmative, some sort of armored apparatus. Based on the genetic sample in the biological components it was meant to enhance one's capability while granting features similar to another genetic sample as well as these appendages and a 'tail.' This one was able to create a simplified version of these appendages which lack a… Folding. Feature._ "

"Armor with claws and a… The Scorpion? We've got the DNA of a C-List villain and the worst Venom in us?" That was kind of disappointing. "I mean, the claws are still cool and-" Spider-Sense, I jumped and backflipped behind Shadow Stalker, thwaking her on the head with my tail at the same time. When I landed she was a spooky ghost skeleton thing in a cloud of darkness, but then she went back to normal and turned around.

"Kid, you need to take this seriously." She sounded kind of angry. "Throw a fu-freaking punch already."

"...do you turn into the spooky ghost thing whenever you get hit hard enough or did you do it on purpose."

"Both, now do something other than dodging and talking to your imaginary friend… Wait, did you get taller?" She looked down. "Okay, what even the hell are your powers?"

I looked down too. "Okay Mister Snuggles, what gives? We can't fly with wings but we can float without them?" Yeah, I was hovering like an inch off the ground and didn't even realize it till I looked.

" _This one was strange, almost tangential to the genetic code to which it was attached. This one was uncertain what it would do until it was attempted._ "

"Okay then, that's fair." It was still weird. The only time I could ever think of symbiotes being able to fly was the time Carol Danvers was Venom for a little bit and I'm not even a hundred percent sure that was real.

I couldn't go higher than an inch off the ground, but I had a lot of fun zooming around the ring. It seemed that I could go about as fast as I could run. It wasn't quite web-slinging, but it was neat.

"Seriously!" Shadow Stalker shouted, sounding angry, "we're supposed to be sparring here."

"Technically," Mister Armsmaster said from the sidelines, "we're here to test Cuddlebug's powers and for she and Weaver to get to know the team and vice versa. I, I don't see anything wrong with her behavior." Mister Smith was scribbling on his clipboard.

I had Mister Snuggles collapse the Scorpion pincers back into regular arms. She said she wanted me to punch her and she did say she'd poof into a ghost thing if she got hit too hard, so…

" _This one has one other construct it can make. It should prove effective for what this one's host desires._ " Yes Mister Snuggles, respond to my thoughts before I even think at you… Honestly, I keep forgetting we could do that.

My hands started to swell up until they were at least twice normal size. And cracks and splits formed around them with the texture changing to something more solid.

I smiled when I realized what that meant. "Hey," I said. Shadow Stalker had her back to me like she was just waiting for me to take things seriously. "Shadow Stalker? What time is it?"

"I don't know. Two thirty? Maybe three?" She sounded fed up.

"Wrong," I said as I started zooming at her as fast as I could. "It's clobberin' time!"

She turned around with a "huh" and then exploded into darkness as I ran past her and sent my fist through her.

I turned around just in time to see her turn back to normal. She seemed really, really angry. "What?" I said, "You asked me to punch you."

She sort of stretched her neck a little, then she spoke. "Kid, let me ask you something: Why do you want to be a hero?"

"I'm really strong and really tough," I said, "and that means that there's lots of ways I can help protect people, and if you _can_ help people, you _should_ help people." I smiled. "If just one person can sleep better at night because they know I'm out there, then I'm doing my job right."

"Then you need to be taking this a whole lot more seriously," she said sternly. "Because if you don't shape up you're going to get yourself killed."

"How so?"

"You said you're from another universe, right kid?" I nodded. "Well, I don't know what your world is like, but here things are rough-"

"There have been at least twenty attempted genocides of mutants in my lifetime." Why did I say that, why did I say that? I really need to learn how to shut up. I heard a gasp and Mr. Smith stopped scribbling. I looked over and Mister Armsmaster was frowning. "I mean-"

"Then you get it," Shadow Stalker went on. "The world is a cold place and there's really only two kinds of people: People strong enough to survive, and people who are too weak to fight back or escape when a survivor decides they want to mess with them. Lots of people have this idealistic view of heroes and villains, like in some old cartoon, but the truth is it's all really ugly. People die here." She grunted. "You want to be the big damn hero? You want to save everyone? You've gotta be strong. Not just enough to survive, you've got to be even stronger. Strong enough to deal with anything." She sounded mad. Really mad. "If you're not, then you're just prey for the monsters out there, and if you goof off like you're doing, they will get you, because you can't dodge forever. You've gotta hit, for real, or you'll lose. Are you strong enough to fight for real?"

"You're not a bad guy."

She cracked her knuckles and I couldn't see her face but I got the impression that she was trying to look me right in the eye. "Okay then, how about this. Are you strong enough, fast enough, to take out the mad gunman before some kid sees mommy's brains splattered on the wall?"

 _There were bad men in my room. I don't know how they got in the apartment, but one of them grabbed me. I couldn't fight. I wasn't strong, I could barely move, but I could scream, and I did as loud as I could. I heard running. My door flew open and there was Daddy, but one of the men had a gun. Bang. Daddy was on the floor, blood was getting everywhere and I could smell metal. I heard Mommy scream, then I saw her. She had a baseball bat and looked from Daddy to me to the men. She was mad. A man put a bag over my head and I heard another bang._

"...I'm just making sure she knows what she's getting into," I heard Shadow Stalker say. Mister Armsmaster looked mad and my mouth kind of feel funny. "What if an Endbringer hits and she ends up drowned, fried, or crazy because she thinks it's a game? It's been like a decade since the Nine were in town, what if they pop in and the brat ends up one of Bonesaw's medical experiments because she was just jumping around, playing, instead of going for the kill..."

 _They made me wear a hospital gown and a big man had me pressed hard into a cold metal table. There was a man in white with a mask like the ones I had to wear when we went outside. He had a lot of really, really big needles and he jabbed them all into my arms and legs and some of them had tubes in them and he left them there and I could see a machine sucking out some of my blood and the guys said something about lots of MGH and all I knew is it hurt so very, very bad._

"...Said that's enough." Mister Armsmaster said.

"Am I wrong? Isn't the whole point of this program to make sure kids like her don't end up like-"

"Shut up."

"Excuse me?" she said, turning back to me and then leaning back. For just a second I saw blood on her hands and a big clump of darkness deep in her heart.

"I said shut up!"

The next thing I knew, Mister Armsmaster was pulling me off of Shadow Stalker and there was a teensy bit of blood on the tip of one of my claws and that was really the only thing I could look at or think about.

"Now that's what I'm talking about, Killer," I heard Shadow Stalker say. "I think I'm gonna need stitches for that." She actually sounded happy about it.

" _Allow this one to assume control,_ " Mister Snuggles whispered in my ears. I let him. He didn't move my eyes away from the bloody claw.

"Shadow Stalker, go to the infirmary." Mister Armsmaster said, "and don't leave the building. You, the director or deputy director, and I will be having words about this incident later."

"She-"

Mister Armsmaster cut her off. "Trigger Trauma." I didn't know what that meant but hearing it made Shadow Stalker say a bad word as she got up to leave. From the corner of my eye, I saw her holding her shoulder.

Mister Armsmaster came around me. His ax-spear thing had changed shape to some kind of staff or scepter that he waved over me. It crackled a little bit and I saw him frown, but then he backed away and Mister Snuggles didn't move to look.

"...So!" I heard Vista's voice, "that's cool, but I don't think Image is going to let you use that… Like, at all."

I didn't know what she meant and-Mister snuggles twisted my head so I could see the mirrors and… That explained why my mouth felt funny. I looked like a bad guy symbiote, with a big jaw and lots of long, sharp, pointy teeth. And the long, slimy tongue. Mine was forked for some reason. My eyespots had also changed to crescents instead of ovals. Once I'd gotten a good look at them, Mister Snuggles shifted the changes away and my mask was back to normal and my mouth didn't feel weird anymore.

Then he turned to look at the Wards. Weaver looked super-duper mad. Vista seemed nervous, Gallant was trying way too hard to look normal, and Clockblocker and Kid Win were both standing super still-Clockblocker flinched when Mister Snuggles made me look at him.

"...I bet you really like KISS," Clockblocker said. "You know, the band?"

"Apologies," Mister Snuggles said with my mouth and throat, "This one felt that this one's host needed time to process the events that just transpired and requested that one designated 'Cuddlebug' cede control of speech and motor functions for a short length of time. This one does know, however, that this one's host's musical preferences fall into that which is designated 'Folk' or 'Country,' though this one is not sure what twanging sound apparati have to do with nations." Clockblocker laughed kind of nervously. I noticed the blood on my claw getting absorbed into Mister Snuggles' goop.

"One designated Armsmaster," Mister Snuggles continued, "is this one's host… In. Trouble. In response to behavior immediately following what this one believes to be designated 'Post Traumatic Flashback?' "

"No," he said. I didn't even know my tummy was all tied up in knots till it relaxed. "However, I'm going to have to talk to a few people about this. Cuddlebug will, most likely, be required to take anger management lessons or attend therapy. While understandable, lashing out isn't healthy and it's not something we can let happen, especially-"

"This one's host understands." Okay, reacting to my thoughts before I think them is kind of creepy when I'm not the one in _control. "This one apologizes for that_." Mister Snuggles made us stand up. "This one apologizes, but this one believes that this one's host would benefit from terminating this session early and returning to these ones' current dwelling to recuperate."

"Fine." Mister Armsmaster said.

"Yeah," Mister Smith said, "we'll need to look at all those new things you did, but that can wait for another day."

Nobody said anything until Weaver and I were walking down the hall. "One designated Weaver? This one suspects that this one's host would benefit from a demonstration of physical affection."

Weaver gave me a hug and then held my hand the rest of the way.

 **Snuggles the Symbiote**

Mister Snuggles had slid back and let me have control again after we'd changed back to civilian clothes. Taylor had kept holding my hand the whole bus ride home. Mister Hebert had to work late so we were alone. Taylor had made me a sandwich and then gave me a notebook, telling me that when she'd had a bad day she wrote about it and it made her feel a little better. Then she left me alone because that kind of thing is private, but not before grabbing her school book bag and a different notebook.

I'd started writing. At first, I just wrote about what happened but then I kind of went into what the people who killed Mommy and Daddy did and all the other bad stuff and that took an hour and then I went to go find Taylor. The second I stepped out of her room I heard her call me down to the living room. She'd found this universe's version of the Princess Bride on the TV and remembered that I'd mentioned it and thought I might like to watch, so we sat there and watched it. I kind of leaned on her and she had an arm around me the whole tie.

"So," she said when it ended. "Does it hold up to what you saw back home?"

"Yeah. It's a little different," I said, "like, in my world Fezzik was played by Andre the Giant."

"The pro-wrestler?"

"Yeah, but… It's close enough." I smiled. "Thank you, for..."

"You're welcome," she said. "So, this is your favorite movie, or what?"

"Yeah. I used to watch it with my grandpa when he was watching me," I said, "and I was sick all the time and since the movie's a story that a grandpa is reading a sick kid, it um.. What's the word?"

"It resonated with you," Taylor added. "You could relate to it and that made it more special."

"Yeah..." I took a deep breath. "About earlier, with Shadow Stalker."

"You don't have to talk-"

"She's that Sophia girl from the mall."

Taylor got quiet for a minute. "...how do you know?"

"Our sense of smell is super strong," I said, "and they smelled exactly alike." Salt and metal. Blood and sweat. "And, and right before I lost it… She's evil and I could see it… She hurt you, didn't she?"

"How can you see evil?" Taylor asked.

"I don't know, it was just, for a second I could see blood on her hands and junk." I thought for a second. "Mister Snuggles, what was that?"

" _This one has no idea._ "

"...Your eyes did look like they were on fire for a second." Taylor admitted.

"That's impossible, symbiotes hate fire." I yawned. "Anyway, did she.."

"Yeah," Taylor said. She sounded sick saying it. "She hurt me. Bad." She sighed. "I want you to promise me that you're not going to worry about it. If Shadow Stalker is Sophia… Just, just leave her to me, okay?"

"Okay, I promise." I sighed too. "The rest of the team is gonna be afraid of me, aren't they?"

"Maybe," Taylor said, "I mean, they tried to smooth things out afterward, but..."

"Eh. If they're afraid, at least it'll be something that makes sense instead of because I was born different." Honestly, being a mutant kind of sucked.

"...Yeah, I'm never letting you go home," Taylor said, "Like, this world is kind of awful but the more you say about where you're from, the less I want you to go back."

"That's fair." I was starting to feel bad again. "Uh… Taylor, this might sound weird, and be like… you can say no, but… C-can I sleep with you tonight."

Taylor looked like she was thinking about it for a bit. "As you wish."


	7. Chapter 6

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

There was something charming about bringing a little kid to the public library for the first time. Ashley was looking around, excited, even though the Brockton Bay Public Library wasn't anything particularly special. Looking around myself, I saw a rather belligerent young boy being dragged out of a side entrance while claiming that he was a genius worthy of worship and at one of the computers, there was a white man who thought cornrows looked good on him.

"The history books and encyclopedias are in the back," I said, ushering Ashley in the general direction and away from the weirdos.

Ten minutes later, the two of us were seated at a relatively secluded table with a textbook of modern history, the most recent World Atlas I could find, and a notebook and some pens I'd brought from home.

Ashley was looking at a map of Africa. "Huh. So Wakanda just doesn't exist here?"

"Apparently not," I said, "what's Wakanda?"

She looked around for a second, to make sure there wasn't anyone listening. "It's a country in Africa in my world. It's got the largest deposit of unadulterated vibranium in the world, and because of that, they're a really rich country with lots of really advanced technology. Everyone there has a flying car and I heard rumors that their doctors had a cure for most cancers, but there's no way that's true because their king, T'challa, is also a superhero and there's no way that a superhero would ever hoard something that could save that many lives." I didn't have the heart to tell her that I could think of dozens of political and economic reasons why a king might be willing to hoard the cure for cancer. "And it's one of the few places in the world that doesn't and never has had any anti-mutant policies, so..."

"That's nice. What are the others?" Knowing that there were some places where people like Ashley weren't treated like shit would be nice, in case...

She grimaced. "Uh, as far as I know, it's just them and Atlantis." I blinked. Of course, her world has a real Atlantis. Why wouldn't it? "And I don't think Atlantis counts because the Atlanteans are a different human-species, except for their king, Namor the Sub-Mariner, who is half mutant and as far as I know the _only_ mutant in Atlantis, so of course they're not gonna have Anti-Mutant policies."

"Well, you don't have to worry about that kind of thing here," I said. She smiled at me and flipped the atlases page to a map of Russia and East Europe.

"Huh," she said, "no sign of Latveria, either… Taylor," she said looking up at me, "I've got something really important to ask you: Have the Savage Lands been discovered here?"

I thought about it. "Describe them to me."

"A terraformed and climate controlled pocket-reality located in Antarctica that contains the evolutionary descendants of dinosaurs and contemporary plants and animals from various locations and time periods collected and studied by aliens millions of years ago, some of whom still resemble their ancestors enough to be classified as the same species, part of which is now a hybrid nature preserve/amusement park."

"...I'm pretty sure that I've seen that movie and read the book it was based on," I said, wide-eyed, "but uh…. Yeah, sorry. As far as I know, there's nothing like that here."

Ashley looked me in the eyes, as serious as I've ever seen her. "So, what you're telling me is that unless I can find a way home, there's no chance that I'll ever get to ride a Triceratops?"

I frowned. "Yeah. Sorry."

She got the grumpiest look on her face and went back to reading, and we spent the next few hours giving her a crash course in history with her filling in details about her world's version. I have to say, the idea of the King of Atlantis personally helping the Allies fight the Nazis gave me a rather interesting mental image.

 **Snuggles the Symbiote**

I had to admit, it was impressive that costuming was able to get a temporary costume that fit the general design I'd agreed to, basically Cuddlebug's outfit in white and purple where hers was gold and blue, on such short notice and managing to get lenses that matched my prescription no doubt, but in comparison to my silk and chitin costume the fabric felt so flimsy. It was padded a bit in a way that my previous wasn't, which was supposed to add some protection, but honestly, I couldn't wait until that shipment of Darwin's barks came in and I could make a permanent costume.

I had forgotten to pick it up yesterday, after, well… everything with Shadow Stalker, so I'd had to do it coming in today and awkwardly change in the unisex bathroom in the back of the costuming office to keep my ID secret.

Right now, I was standing outside the Brute and Changer Training Area while Ashley was finishing up her power testing. Under normal circumstances, I'd be in there with her instead of just keeping an eye on things with a couple of bugs, but a little fly on the wall had told me that Shadow Stalker was using the cardio room on this floor.

Speak of the devil, it seemed like she was finishing up. I leaned up against the wall as casually as I could manage, and when she walked past… "Hey, Stalker? Can I have a word with you?"

She paused and turned to me but didn't say anything, "about yesterday, I-"

"Look, I already got chewed out for that," she interrupted, "I'd have used different examples if I'd know that I was hitting her trigger buttons but-"

"But you didn't get chewed out by me," I said, grabbing her collar. "Cuddlebug's been through a lot. And for all intents and purposes, I'm her big sister now. So if you talk to her without a good reason, touch her, get too close to her, or even look at her the wrong way, there will never be a time where your underwear isn't full of spiders." This totally wasn't a rather cathartic moment for me. "And take it from somebody who knows, this town is _lousy_ with black widows."

I wasn't expecting her to laugh. "About fucking time," she said. "The whole team are a bunch of wimps and weaklings, and when we finally get someone who knows how it really works, we get two at once." She laughed again. "Fine, I'll leave the kid alone," she said as she freed from my grip, "if it's that important to you. Now, I've got console duty that I want to get out of the way, see you later." And then she just walked off.

Nothing, not even The Locker, had made me feel as filthy as being complimented by Sophia Hess had.

I forced the feeling from my mind. A few minutes later Ashley came out of the training room, floating an inch off the ground and with her wings deployed. Her eyespots were positioned in a way that I think implied that she was smiling.

"Have fun?" I asked.

"Yep!" And then without another word she took my hand and we went to the Wards Headquarters in the basement. Down the elevator, hit the buzzer, wait a minute for the doors to open, and then we're in. In a room full of bored-looking teenagers. And one giant teenager with cartoonishly large muscles in a diamond-pattern costume whose mood wasn't readily readable.

Then he came up to us and extended a grotesquely enlarged hand to me. "Hello. I am Browbeat. You are Weaver and Cuddlebug?"

"Yeah," I replied while awkwardly taking his hand.

"You are the most enormous person I have ever seen," Cuddlebug said in slight awe.

"Thank you," Browbeat answered, taking it as a compliment. And with that greeting finished he went off to go back to whatever it was he was doing before, and Cuddlebug and I went to the couch to sit with Vista.

"Hey," Vista greeted. "Uh, Cuddlebug, are you alright?"

"Yeah," Cuddlebug said.

"Look," Vista continued, "don't worry about Shadow Stalker. She's a bitch but that's about all she is."

"Language," Cuddlebug chastised. This made Vista laugh.

"Okay," she said, "did they fill you in on what's happening today?"

"Yeah," I said, "The Protectorate are Wining and Dining the city's upper class to earn some good PR. The Agents are patrolling the streets at a slightly higher rate, but if something major goes down the Wards deploy en masse."

"Officially, Weaver and I aren't supposed to be 'revealed' until this weekend," Cuddlebug added, "but if there's an emergency we go with you guys and the Public Relations department will spin it as a sneak preview of the new members of the team."

"Yeah, that's the gist of it," Vista confirmed. "If I had any say in it, we'd all be out there patrolling right now and picking up the slack, but the folks in charge don't want us all out in force when there isn't a direct problem because it makes Soccer moms bi-complain about the PRT using child soldiers." I couldn't see her eyes through the visor, but I got the impression that she was rolling them. "So unless and until something public happens, we're just sitting here bored. I don't even know what the point of the vocational program is then." The vocational program was something I'd learned about while Dad and Alan were working out the contracts. Basically, the PRT had hashed out a deal with Arcadia: As long as the Wards maintained decent grades, they could skip out after lunch and come to the PRT to learn skills that would help them in a career of Super-Powered Law enforcement. Which mostly amounted to doing the things that the Wards did anyway. Apparently, it was a scam to get around some regulations regarding the Wards requiring regular School Hours, but I wasn't complaining: I'd get a shot at it once my transfer to Arcadia was complete and so would Ashley if she actually pulled off her attempt to skip all of the grades. Of course, the Wards in the program weren't officially being sent to work for the PRT, and Arcadia also had a legit Vocational Program which, from what I could tell, was either the reason the PRT could get away with this or cover for this scheme. I legitimately didn't know which came first.

Looking around, Aegis seemed to be doing paperwork. Clockblocker was building something out of toothpicks, and Gallant was just standing there.

Cuddlebug got off the couch, gave her wings a few good flaps, and jumped, flipping in the air to land on the ceiling, where she stuck and then crouched down. Or up.

Clockblocker looked up from his toothpick tower. "Why are you on the ceiling?"

"Because it's fun," Cuddlebug answered in the same tone that someone would say that water is wet.

"Fair enough," Clockblocker replied. He then ran his fingers gently down his now finished tower of toothpicks and then knocked out the bottom, leaving a small wooden pyramid floating in the air. Cuddlebug clapped.

"Are you trying to be cute," Vista asked, "or is this just how you are?"

Cuddlebug cocked her head to the side, her eyespots widening a bit. "What do you mean?"

"Marketing is going to love you," Vista deadpanned. "Anyway, maybe now that you're here, people will stop trying to pigeonhole me into being the cute one."

Cuddlebug fell down from the ceiling and landed in a crouch on the floor, her wings melting back into her back. "What's wrong with being cute?"

"N-nothing," Vista said quickly, "But… Look, I've been a member of the Wards for years now. With Triumph graduated out, I'm the senior most member of the team."

Cuddlebug gasped and said "That is so _cool_!" at the same time Clockblocker mumbled something about doing this again.

"Thank you," Vista replied, "but when people, people on the street, the higher-ups here, when they look at me, they don't see my years of experience or the criminals I've brought in, they just see a cute little girl."

Cuddlebug's eyespots blinked. I didn't know they could do that. "Well, aren't you?"

"That's beside the point," Vista countered, "the point is they don't respect me. I'm the most experienced but they made Aegis the leader because he's the oldest."

Aegis meanwhile seemed content to stay out of the conversation, until Cuddlebug called out to him. "Uh, Aegis, how's your arm?"

"It's fine," he answered with a wave of the arm he'd broken yesterday, "thanks for asking."

"Uh, Vista?" I asked, "thought: Most Wards are expected to join the Protectorate when they graduate from the program, right?"

"Yeah?" She replied.

"And the Protectorate leads PRT Squads," I continued.

"Your point?" She asked.

"If they had made you the leader when Triumph graduated out," I finished, "then Aegis, Clockblocker, Gallant, Shadow Stalker, Kid Win, Browbeat, and I wouldn't get any leadership experience before graduating the program."

Vista opened her mouth to respond. Then closed it. She raised a finger and opened her mouth again, then put her hand down and closed it. Almost a full minute had passed before she finally said "...Just because it makes sense, that doesn't mean I have to like it." She then crossed her arms and leaned back into the couch with a pout, looking cuter than she probably hoped.

Cuddlebug shifted to look straight at her. "Vista, would you like a hug?"

"What?"

Cuddlebug shrugged, "you sound like you could use a hug."

Vista sighed. "I'm fine."

"Cuddlebug," I asked, "would _you_ like a hug?"

"I'd _always_ like a hug," she answered cheerfully.

"Come here," I said, waving her over. She hopped on the couch and snuggled up to me for a hug as I wrapped an arm around her.

A little later, a PRT Agent escorted Kid Win into the room. After sitting him down on a chair and leaving, Clockblocker turned to him. "Tinker fugue?"

"Tinker fugue," Kid Win confirmed.

"Kid," Aegis said, "You were still here when I left last night and I didn't see you at school, were you up all night Tinkering?"

"...No." Kid Win said. "I was up late, but I slept. I had a doctor's appointment this morning and when that was done I would have been at the school for maybe ten minutes before the 'Vocation' program started so I blew it off and came here to finish tinkering."

Behind Kid Win, Gallant flashed a thumbs up to Aegis. He caught it and nodded. "Okay then."

"But seriously," Kid Win went on, "like I started on a pair of gauntlets with integrated lasers and the next thing I knew I had a third of a suit of armor ready. I'll need to talk with Armsmaster about miniaturizing the repulsors in my hoverboard but..." and then I kind of started tuning out the technobabble.

Nobody was directly addressing me right now, so I decided to practice with my powers, gripping onto the senses of every bug and the building and picking up on my mapping of the ventilation system from the other night in the director's office and I kind of lost myself in the experience until I heard Gallant call "Cuddlebug," causing the girl leaned up against me to jump and bringing me back to the room.

"Wh-what?" Cuddlebug asked?

I looked down at her. "Did, did you fall asleep?"

"... _no_ ," she denied in the same tone she'd used to deny her obvious fear of needles. I think her bedtime might have to be adjusted.

"I was just asking," Gallant began, "if you'd be willing to share a bit more about where you're from?"

"Oh yeah," she said cheerfully. "Uh… um... Browbeat! Yeah, do you know about, uh, me, or…?"

"I was informed about the evidence to suggest that you are from an as of yet unknown parallel reality where superpowers are the result of genetic mutations and extraterrestrial interference rather than the spontaneous development of benign brain tumors in response to severe stress." Browbeat went quiet for a second, then continued, "thinking about it, I think your reality's superpower mechanics make more sense than this one's."

Cuddlebug blinked again, "...Okay then. Uh, what should I talk about? Uh, the PRT people want me to tell them about some of the people who might have been cloned and brought here when I was so, you wanna hear about that?"

Gallant nodded.

"Well, okay, the most important person to know about if he or a clone of him is here is Doctor Doom. Except he's not a real doctor because he never finished his degree and for some reason, he doesn't think that Victor von Doom is a cool enough name on its own-"

"Wait," Clockblocker interrupted, "is that his real name?"

"As far as I know," Cuddlebug confirmed, "now the real Doom is the ruler of a country in Europe called Latveria which doesn't seem to exist here, so even if his clone has all of his memories he won't have diplomatic immunity or be rich enough to build a bajillion robot versions of himself that he can switch out with if he needs to, so the hard part of beating him is already taken care of," Cuddlebug's eyespots scrunched up as thought to imply she was in deep thought. "The problem is that even without his money, he's got an ego the size of a planet and is one of the top ten smartest people in the world, the second or third most accomplished scientific mind, and the fifth or sixth most skilled sorcerer-second if you don't count Gods and demons-"

"That stuff's real where you're from?" Vista interrupted.

"Yep!" Cuddlebug replied, "Thor bought my Grandpa a beer once." Vista didn't look convinced, but Cuddlebug continued on."Um, after Doom the next biggest issue would probably be Magneto: Master of Magnetism. He's a mutant, but uh… He's an Alpha or Omega class one. He can control the entire electromagnetic spectrum and anything even vaguely made of metal. He's also a Holocaust survivor and a mutant supremacist: He was the guy who came up with the Homo Superior garbage."

It was at this time that I desperately hoped that this guy wasn't here. While a man with electromagnetic powers and a grudge against the Nazis would probably deal with this city's Neo-Nazi problem swiftly, there's no way in hell it'd be done without a lot of blood and this city was unstable enough as it is.

"Then there's Sauron and Stegron," Cuddlebug continued oblivious to my thoughts, "Sauron named himself after the guy from the ring books and Stegron is his real name. They're genius geneticists who like to turn people into dinosaurs when they could be curing cancer. Sauron is half-quetzalcoatlus and can hypnotize people and suck out their life energy, Stegron's half-stegosaurus and regenerates. Sometimes they work together and sometimes they don't and-"

She was interrupted by Aegis getting a call on his Wards issue phone. "Yes, yes, yeah…" Then he hung up. "Wards, we need to move, someone's attacked Brockton Central and took the people inside hostage."

I stood up and braced myself: My first super-heroic act as a Ward. As we were leaving, I placed a convenient ladybug we happened to pass by onto Cuddlebug to better keep track of her in case this went south, but after our fight with Lung and that spider-lady and her power testing, I had faith that she could take care of herself.

 **Snuggles the Symbiote**

The bank was surrounded with squirrels. Cuddlebug took one look at them all, strategically placed and oddly calm despite the rain, and started muttering "please no evil clones" over and over again.

Just as we got to the bank, the doors opened and out came a handful of people. I recognized Bakuda, a member of the AZN Bad Boyz who wore a gas mask, and the blue-skinned, elf eared, six-eyed, fuzzy armed, bug mouthed naked feral woman that Lung had taken as a pet, but it had also seemed that Bakuda had hired a couple of mercenaries, or at least, I assumed so since they weren't Asian. My attention was drawn to the hostage she was holding, a brown haired girl with freckles who'd been forced into a bomb vest, but Cuddlebug's attention was on one of the mercenaries.

A young redheaded woman with a long, fluffy, squirrel-like tail.

"We," Cuddlebug said. "Are. _Screwed._ "


	8. Interlude 2(Erik)

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

It'd taken almost a week, but he'd finally gathered up enough scrap and circuits to finish a rudimentary gene tracker. With planetary range, there'd be a handful of false positives and latent mutants might not show up, but it should give him a ballpark estimate for how many _Homo superior_ there were in this strange new Earth he'd found himself in.

A minor adjustment made easy through his vast powers and then a small charge into the crude battery and the machine activated and ran through its boot sequence and...no. That couldn't possibly be right.

According to this machine he'd constructed, there were less than a hundred mutants worldwide, mostly concentrated among the eastern half of North America. He made a few adjustments and refocused for the local area, a city that he'd been told was called Brockton Bay. Three, counting himself… Okay, one of those dots was four superimposed upon each other, but that was clearly a glitch caused by the subpar design and resources.

The man who had decided on Erik Maximoff-First name from one of his original self's aliases, surname from the twins who may or may not be his son and daughter-disassembled his machine and hid the components in the pockets of a donated trench coat and began his trek back to the homeless shelter in which he'd been forced by circumstances to reside. If he didn't make it back by the curfew, they'd give away his cot.

As he made his way to his temporary dwelling, he began to think. There are only a handful of mutants on this planet… It was probable that none of them were native. He wasn't sure what had brought them all here, but he suspected that it was a result of the battle between what appeared to a clone of one of the time-traveling Summers boys and an unknown blond man with a resemblance to the leader of the Fantastic Four.

His fellow clones contained what was, in all probability, the first generation of mutants that this world had ever seen. His instincts had been to find as many as he could, but… Now what?

He knew he was a clone. It was instinctual, he'd known it even before he'd opened his eyes after having awoken nude in a glass container with a randomized serial number on it, surrounded by similar individuals. 24005. His clone number and the number tattooed into his original self's arm at Auschwitz. He wasn't sure whether he would have preferred if it was a coincidence or a cruel joke by whoever had manufactured an army of clones.

He thought back to his, or rather, his original self's, time in the camps. To the years after. To his attempts to ensure mutant survival by making them the dominant species on the planet and his many conflicts and alliances with Charles and his X-Men and his more recent attempts to carry on Charles dream… They were all just as clear as they were before he awoke, but at the same time, they were far more distant. It legitimately felt as though they were another life, which he supposed they were in every sense of the word.

In some ways, it was a boon. His lessened emotional attachment to those memories allowed him to review his original self's actions more objectively. With hindsight and that clarity, his original self's terrorist actions in the name of mutant supremacy had probably done far more harm than good. A great deal of the hatred against mutants had probably been directed against he himself and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants… In hindsight, that probably wasn't the best name considering his goals.

But that increased clarity did nothing to make clear what he should do now. He'd ruled out finding a way back to his original world: Without a direct way to track his universal signature, he could wander the multiverse for eternity and even if he found his way home there was already a Magneto… Unless his original self had returned to his old ways since the genetic sample used to make him was taken, but he was certain that he was adamant to stay changed this time.

His first instinct was to do what he could for mutants, but he needed to get his bearings first and less than one hundred people were barely a minority. All he could think to do was get his own needs met and then do whatever he could to put the best face forward so that this world that had never seen mutants could perhaps maybe be prevented from hating and fearing them. But how?

He was roused from his thoughts by a commotion down an alley. He looked down and saw three young men, two with shaved heads and one blonde, stomping on a man. The young men dressed in gang colors, red and black, and the blonde had a swastika tattooed on his exposed arm.

Erik's blood boiled. He reached out and seized the iron in the young men's own blood and pinned them all to a wall before approaching the man on the ground and helping him up.

"Don't help the fucking lampshade up!" The young blonde man said shortly before Erik ripped out his dental fillings and used the blood in his lips to force his mouth shut.

"Are you alright, sir?" Erik asked of the man who'd been victimized, a middle-aged man with greying red hair.

"...Yeah," the man said hoarsely, "just a couple bruises. Bastards took me by surprise is all," Erik escorted the man back to the opening of the ally.

"Do you need help?" He asked the man.

"Nah, I'm fine," the man answered. "I can get home from here and sleep it off… Dumb fuckers, I'm not even Jewish."

"It's in the experience of my family," Erik said, "that the young men who throw their lot in with the Nazis are either utterly immoral or severely mentally defective. In this case, it seems that they're both."

The man laughed. "...You, you just ripped them off the ground and threw them up against the wall… You a Hero?"

Erik thought about it. "I suppose, in a manner of speaking… You can call me-" Not Magneto. In hindsight, it was a rather villainous sounding name, but… Ah. The name he was born with. "Eisenhardt. Yiddish for Iron Heart. A perfect tweak on the nose against our morally and intellectually challenged friends, yes?"

The man laughed again. "Yeah… Well, Eisenhardt. I'll keep my eyes and ears out for you. I can make my way from here."

Erik watched the man hobble off until he turned and left his line of sight. And then Erik returned to the pinned Neo-Nazis.

Erik had learned that a group of Supervillains in this city were Neo-Nazis and led a gang of the same. Empire Eighty-Eight, they called themselves. Some of them had appropriated Norse Iconography, which made Erik wonder if any Asgardians were among his fellow clones: he imagined that Odinson would be rather cross with the scum.

He knew what to do now. He'd give the best showing for mutants by being a hero, and he'd start by taking out the trash.

"I'm going to let you down now," he said to then young men. "And I'm giving you one chance. If I see you in those colors again, if I learn that you have committed more crimes of hate… I will tear the iron from your very cells and impale your corpses upon spires of your own blood."

The horror was apparent in their eyes. He dropped them to the ground and they sprinted off.

Erik continued on his way to the shelter, though he figured that he'd have to find some other place to sleep soon, as he'd have to start working nights, so to speak.

 **Snuggles the Symbiote**

It'd taken him only a day to relocate to a small, disused apartment near the city's docks. Apparently, the man he'd helped knew a man who knew a man who owned a rundown apartment building with plenty of vacant rooms. He got a month, off the books, but he should have at least some kind of income by the time it becomes an issue. It was quite fortuitous that he'd run into the man again.

A night later, and he was out again hunting Nazis. He'd heard that a woman had been attacked. Lacking access to the television or internet, he had to rely on second-hand sources but from asking around he'd had a decent enough idea of who the suspected perpetrator was. If he found the man, good. If not, he'd get him some other time and would probably run into some other Nazi.

Off in the distance he saw a blonde woman in white flying through the air and so he approached quickly: He didn't quite have a perfect understanding of who everyone in this city was, as of yet, but based on the tends from his own world she was probably a hero and being known as a hero to the heroes of this world could only benefit him. He didn't dare take to the air until he had proper armor, but he felt that using his magnetism to levitate for a bit and speed down a few alleys to catch up with her, dashing around to meet her at the opposite end of an alley he'd seen her dive for and-he was then punched in the face by a fleeing man.

He was momentarily knocked off balance but righted himself and seized the man by the iron in his blood and slammed him into a wall. Perhaps a little too hard, as there was a sickening crack.

He righted himself and saw the young woman examining the man he'd pinned, who was cursing. He approached.

"Thanks for the assist," the young woman said, then looked him over. Now that he was in her presence, he could tell that there was some aura about her. "Are you new?"

"You can say that," he said. "New to town. New to the business of heroism."

"Well," the girl said, "I'm Glory Girl." She offered a hand which he took and shook. "Well, this is the jackass that brutalized Andrea Young."

"How serendipitous," Erik commented, "that's who I was looking for as well." The restrained man then coughed and blood spilled from his mouth.

"Well," the young woman said, sounding a bit concerned "you messed him up pretty bad throwing him into the wall, so I'm gonna have to call my sister to fix it or we're gonna get in a lot of trouble," Glory Girl said while pulling a smartphone out from somewhere in her costume. "Hey, Ames? ...Yeah… Actually, it wasn't me this time..." she said walking off towards the end of the ally. While she made the call and the waited, Erik, ruminated on what had happened… He, or rather, the original Magneto, had far better control than that...

Five minutes later a young woman in a hooded white robe with a red cross approached and was escorted over to himself and the prisoner.

"Why is he… Oh, you're doing it?" The new girl said, "Telekinesis?"

"Ferrokinesis," Erik corrected. That and magnetokinesis, but why overcomplicate things? "I'm keeping him restrained by controlling the iron molecules in his blood cells."

He couldn't see her whole face, as she had a scarf, but he could clearly see her blink. "Hemoglobin doesn't work that way."

Erik smiled and gestured to the Neo-Nazi he had pinned. "And yet…"

"Whatever," she said, "uh Mister-"

"Eisenhardt," he supplied.

"...That's an odd name for someone who's supposedly an enemy of the Empire," the new girl commented.

"Not as much as you'd think," Erik corrected, "it's Yiddish. In fact, it was the surname of my grandfather," he half-lied, "a survivor of Auschwitz, so I can assure you that I, of anyone, have reason to oppose those who claim to carry on Adolph Hitler's allegedly great work."

The pinned prisoner muttered "fucking hebe" under his breath, which was impressive considering his condition. This time, Erik resisted the urge to cause the man further pain. For now.

"Sorry," the girl apologized. "So uh, before I get to work on this guy, would you like me to take care of that shiner that's forming?"

Erik's first instinct had been to refuse, but he did need a decent working relationship with the heroes of this world. "I would appreciate it, Miss…?"

"Panacea," the girl supplied, sounding confused.

"Sorry," he said, "I'm new in town."

"Okay, now if I have your permission?."

He nodded. "If you can be quick about it, it would be a shame if this scum were to pass on before he could repay his debt to society."

She placed a hand upon his face, near his eye. "You've got some kind of healing factor, don't you?"

"I'm sorry?"

"There's no scar tissue anywhere in your body," she explained. "You don't even have a belly button. So either you've got a healing factor that doesn't speed up your healing, because I'm not sensing you healing faster, but makes it so that you heal perfectly, or you were grown in a tube less than a month ago. And that would be ridiculous."

"Yes, it would," he said, forcing a laugh. He didn't answer the question, however, but instead just let her heal him.

"And good as new," she finished, "now you might want to get some kind of genetic screening or something, I saw a couple of mutations that I've only seen in you so I don't know if you're at risk for some kind of disease or something but I'm not messing with something… Wait… You're uh… From very, very far away, aren't you?" She sounded as though she was hinting at something.

"Panacea," the girl's sister began, "what are you getting at?"

"Eisenhardt has two things in common with that girl with the parasite I treated the other night. A gene on the twenty-third chromosome pair that I've only ever seen in her and now him, and something that most parahumans have but neither he nor she does. Which makes me think they're from the same place."

Glory Girl's eyes widened but she said nothing else.

Clearly, the girl had treated one of his fellow mutant refugees. It was quite odd that she'd have run into two of the three Homo _superior_ in such a large city in just a few days, but then again it was mostly coincidence that he'd found the exact Nazi that he'd been looking for in the first place. He didn't comment on it.

He stood back as the two girls tended to the pinned man,mending him just enough to keep him alive and then interrogating him with threats of withholding further healing and what the effects could be on him, the healer gaining a sense of legitimacy by claiming to have sworn the Hippocratic oath even as she violated it by, essentially, psychologically torturing them man, and deflecting his threats of legal action against them or Erik himself by comparing their reputations to Nazi's and invoking their lawyer mother. It was touching, he supposed, that they were extending their protection to him after having only just met him, but at the same time… Erik would have complimented them on their ruthlessness if he hadn't been trying to present himself in a heroic light.

Eventually, the man spoke, telling them of the so-called Empire's attempts to expand into the Docks and the potential for war on the horizon now that someone named Lung had been taken into custody and that the ABB, another gang in town, was weak.

Erik didn't care, because if he had his way this Empire wouldn't last long enough to claim that territory.

As the girls finished their interrogation, he himself stepped forward.

"Sir," Erik said, "to remind you, I have complete control of every atom of iron in your body. I could easily tear you to shreds with a thought. Keep that in mind, because I'm only going to ask you once: Where can I find this so-called 'Kaiser?' If you don't know, you can instead tell me where I can find someone who does."

And then he looked the man in his eyes. The Nazi buckled under the pressure of his gaze, and he left the man in the care of the locals.

 **Snuggles the Symbiote**

As luck would have it, this Kaiser was meeting with one of his lieutenants, a man called Hookwolf, that very night. Apparently, in addition to espousing white supremacism and anti-semitism, the so-called Empire made money by selling illegal narcotics and gambling on blood sports, and this Hookwolf arranged dogfights. One was scheduled for later this week, and Hookwolf was reporting in to the alleged Emperor on the final arrangements. He wasn't sure why someone who claimed to lead an empire went to his minion's location rather than make the lieutenant come to him, but he supposed that this Kaiser had his reasons.

They were located in a warehouse of some sort. There were no obvious guards outside the building, but he still moved with haste to enter, using an electromagnetic field to disable an electrical lock on a side door before sneaking in.

The building wasn't lit properly and there'd clearly been renovations done, installing a ring and seating for the fights. From where he was he could make out an office or at least a room closed off from the rest of the warehouse. There were two people standing outside the door, a figure in metallic armor with a cage around their head, holding two kama, and a shirtless man in a metal tiger mask.

He didn't think they'd seen him in his hiding spot and-they both turned to look right where he was, the tiger-masked one pointing a fist in his direction.

So he used a magnetic field to send them both crashing into the wall behind them. There was nothing for it, even as he alerted the men inside the office to the presence of an intruder.

Two men emerged, one in bladed steel armor and one in a hastily thrown on metal wolf mask but otherwise shirtless.

Erik shed his trenchcoat, thinking it would get in the way of a full-fledged fight, and left his hiding place near the point of entry, revealing himself to his adversaries.

The wolf-masked man, who he presumed to be Hookwolf, literally growled at him. He was reminded vaguely of Sabertooth. "I don't know who the fuck you are, but you've got a lot of nerve..."

Erik blinked. "There's a lot of iron in your body."

"What?"

Many, many tiny hooks and blades of steel existed within this man, lining his muscles. Erik smiled and seized each. Then he _twisted._

The man, Hookwolf, screamed. A loud and primal cry of abject agony.

The two he'd thrown into the wall roused themselves and leaped at him. He raised a hand, freezing them in mid-air with an electromagnetic field. With a flick of his arm, he hurled them over himself, through the air, and into the far wall.

The one he presumed was Hookwolf shifted into a mass of hooks and blades. It was rather amorphous, but he assumed that the man could shift into various shapes from this state… If only he wasn't trapped in Erik's control.

Erik could see a spike of metal sliding from the ground beside him from the corner of his eye, and so levitated from the ground held aloft by his perfect control of electromagnetic fields.

The armored one, who he assumed to be Kaiser, swore under breath and more blades and spikes erupted from the ground and the walls and the ceiling, each trying to impale him, but Erik was able to avoid each one until he was backed up into a corner.

Then he dropped the screaming mass of blades and seized the blades and spikes that the Nazi tried to impale him on with his full power. Lightning flowed freely from his hands and static made every hair on his body stand on end as the high-quality steel began to warp, to bend, to break.

And then, with a strong pulse that made the warehouse's lights flicker, he made each and every blade and spike shatter into little shards. Erik made each shard freeze in place and then dance around him, sorting each fragment of steel for the best quality pieces: Erik was proud, but not so proud as to not accept such generous gift when given so freely.

The steel properly sorted, he settled the discarded fragments into neat piles on the ground and used powerful magnetic fields to reshape, restructure, merge and separate, and finally form upon his body armor and a helm, resembling his original self's own equipment but clean, gleaming silver rather than dark red. All he needed now was a billowing cape.

He slowly lowered himself to the ground, touching down gently, before the so-called Kaiser, who hadn't moved a muscle since Eisenhardt had shattered his summoned weapons.

"Who are you?" the bladed armored man asked. "What do you want?"

"Eisenhardt, Master of Magnetism." He'd have to workshop that, as the alliterative title wasn't as effective with his new name.

"Hard as Iron?" Kaiser questioned. "It's certainly a fitting name… Is this an audition? I do have to say that you've made an impressive showing but there are better ways to get my attention."

"Actually, it's Heart of Iron," he corrected. "Yiddish, not German. And, well, knowing that I'm sure that even someone stupid enough to believe that pale skin and defective hair and eye pigmentation genes make you inherently superior to other humans can figure that there's really only one reason why I'd be seeking out a Nazi." Their positions had been reversed while he was in the air, the Kaiser's back was at the door that he'd come in through.

A sudden wall of steel blades was erected between himself and Kaiser, and when Eisenhardt had torn it down the Kaiser had fled.

"That… Son of a bitch." Ah, it'd seemed that Hookwolf had reverted to his form of flesh at some point. Eisenhardt proceeded to throw him into the wall with the other two.

The Kaiser's escape had been… Problematic. Never before had Magneto's powers, either Erik's or his original self's, been limited to line of sight. And the wall had taken far longer to tear down than it should have… He felt more tired now that he should have, as well... Between that and his moment of imprecision the other night, Erik was forced to conclude that, for whatever reason, his powers had been lessened from those of his original self. Not by much, but enough to allow for accidents or for him to more easily strain himself.

He then checked on three that he'd thrown into the wall, noting that they were out cold but breathing. He carefully positioned them and then, after taking a moment of rest and great care to avoid accidents, merged the remaining shards of metal into a long, sturdy pole that he wrapped around them. Blinking away his sudden tiredness, he hummed to himself, not quite sure what to do next…

...Perhaps he should take a page from the terrible comedian who was an ally of the X-Men? He searched the office, finding a sheet of paper and a pen that looked as though it hadn't been touched in a while. A quick check to make sure it worked, and soon a note saying "To the Heroes of this city, a gift from Eisenhardt" was attached to a trio of unconscious and bound Neo-Nazis.

He had a little change in his trenchcoat, which he collected as he left. This town was riddled with Payphones, he'd make an anonymous call to the organization that policed Superhumans and then continue his crusade on another night.


	9. Chapter 7

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

"This is bad," I said. "This is bad. This is very bad. This is very, very, very bad!"

"Cuddlebug," Aegis interrupted. "Please explain why exactly this is so bad."

"I'm pretty sure that's an evil clone of Squirrel Girl," I explained, "and-"

"I wouldn't say evil, exactly," the clone interrupted. "Differently moral. Maybe even sociopathic, but not flat-out evil and-wait a second," she said looking right at me. "You're an Ultra Rare Venomette! And you're Shiny! Sergei, can we keep her?"

Another bad guy walked up next to Evil Squirrel Girl. He was a muscly man with black hair and a well-groomed beard. I almost didn't recognize him in his work pants and jacket, but it clicked in my head when he talked and sounded Russian. "You enthusiasm is always a treat, Belka, but at this time we can barely keep ourselves fed." Evil Squirrel Girl and a copy of Kraven the Hunter were talking about the logistics of adopting me.

"But she's so cute!" Evil Squirrel Girl protested. "I want to catch her and train her and battle her and love her and get her a Hellmark so she'll evolve into Mania instead of She-Venom and-"

"I'm sorry," I interrupted, "But what in the name of Thor's Glorious Golden Locks are you talking about? Are you referencing something?"

Evil Squirrel Girl blinked. "... _Pokemon_?"

I rolled my eyes. "Pokemon is overrated. _Digimon_ was better."

"...That's okay," Evil Squirrel Girl said with narrowed eyes, "we all make mistakes, sweetie."

"What the hell are you guys talking about?" Vista interrupted.

"Can we maybe not do this bit while my girlfriend's sister is in a bomb vest?" Gallant added.

"There are squirrels in my pants!" Clockblocker shouted while rolling around on the ground. Browbeat picked him up by his legs and started shaking him which made squirrels fall out of his armor.

"Sorry," I said. I was kind of smiling like a sheep but I don't think anybody could see.

Evil Squirrel Girl chittered something to the squirrels that fell out of Clockblocker and they all looked apologetic. Then she shrugged and pulled a packaged pastry out of her pockets. She started eating it and I could smell peanut butter and almonds pretty clearly through the rain.

"Anyway," I said turning back to the other Wards, "the real Squirrel Girl is unbeatable. Literally, she's never lost. Her first ever act as a Superhero at fourteen was to beat up Doctor Doom and send him running back to Latveria! In the past six or so years she's beaten MODOK and Fin-Fang-Foom and Thanos and Galactus and Ego the Living Planet and-"

"Cuddlebug?" Aegis interrupted.

"Oh, Sorry," I apologized. "I never explained who those guys were. Those guys are a giant head that's super smart and also has a rocket chair with all kinds of deadly weapons, a five hundred foot tall shapeshifting alien dragon, a Mutant Cybernetic Immortal Space-Guy with all kinds of cosmic powers, an omnipotent giant that eats planets, and a literal living planet."

"Cuddlebug?" Aegis asked again.

"Anyway, the last time Squirrel Girl got cloned, the evil clone beat up literally everyone," I said. "And I'm not doing that thing where people say literally when they're speaking figuratively because they're stupid." I breathed in before I remembered that I don't have to as long as I'm with Mister Snuggles. "I mean she literally beat up thousands of heroes and villains from all over the world and banished them to a pocket dimension and was only stopped when the Real Squirrel Girl got her hands on Mjolnir and used the power of a God to tear a hole to the pocket reality and bring in all the heroes and villains that had been banished to fight her all at once."

"Cuddlebug!?" Aegis shouted.

"Yes," I said, blinking.

He then picked me up by the shoulders and turned me back around to see that Evil Squirrel Girl was now in the middle of the street, tied up in spider-silk with Weaver sitting on her and lots of spiders crawling around them.

"How the Hell did you-?" What? No, Seriously, what?

"She seemed distracted by her snack," Weaver said with a shrug. "I saw the opening and I took it."

There was only one explanation: Taylor was the greatest hero ever in any conceivable universe forever.

"Okay," Gas Mask Lady said while holding up a remote. "That was-"

And then I heard a gunshot and the remote flew from her hand.

There was another group of people on the street. An older blonde girl in a grey and purple costume and a domino mask, holding a pistol, and a really big girl with a fur-collared jacket and a plastic dog mask, a biker-looking guy with a skull on his mask, a man dressed like a fancy ren-fair guy with a white mask, and a boy about Vista's age with light brown hair in jeans, a hoodie, and a domino mask. Behind them were three dogs with spikes coming out of them and exposed muscles. The dogs were getting bigger.

They were coming our way.

"By the way," the blonde with the gun said, "that's a body double, not the actual Bakuda."

"Why are you helping us?" Aegis asked them.

'We were in the area," the man in the skull helmet said. "Panacea getting exploded is bad for everyone."

"...You were gonna rob the bank," Vista said. "And you're pissed off that the ABB beat you to it."

"That too," the young boy said. "Hey," he said, pointing to me. "Defective Venom Clone?"

"No," I said. "We're not a clone. Uh… I'm sorry, who are you?"

He sighed. "... I was cloned from one of the Runaways."

"The who?" I asked.

"No, that's a band. The kids who killed their supervillain parents by pissing off the fallen angels the parents made a deal with."

"Oh," I said, "Chase Stein's group. Wait… There were no boys your age in that group."

He sighed again. "Molly. Molly Hayes. The girl with super strength. The cloners screwed up and I came out a boy."

And then the Fuzzy Naked Blue Spider-Lady jumped on him and he pushed her off back over the group.

Suddenly there were a lot of guys with guns dressed up in outfits that showed a lot of red and green. Were they all in the bank and-Spider-sense tingling, had to jump because the Kraven Clone leaped at me.

"Okay, if you're going to help," I heard Aegis shout, "it seems like we've just escalated to a full-fledged fight."

Then I saw Browbeat and Aegis go for Kraven, Dogosauruses chasing guys with guns, black smoke, laser beams flying, the street getting all abstract arty, and bugs everywhere and it was basically just chaos in the street.

A few seconds of dodging bullets later, I found myself next to Boy-Molly and the Blonde girl.

"Bruiser-"

"King Kickass," Boy-Molly corrected.

" _Bruiser_ " Blonde Girl insisted, "and uh… Girl from the same bizarre alternate universe as Bruiser."

"Cuddlebug," I supplied,

"Noted. Look," she said, "if one of you can distract Fake Bakuda." I looked up at the entrance of the Bank and saw Fake Gas Mask Lady and the Panacea, the girl that'd fixed up Taylor's arm the night we met. Fake Gas Mask Lady kind of melted and shifted into a pointy-eared lizard-lady thing.

"Hey," I said, "she's a Skrull. Neat."

"Look, if one of you can distract her and away from Panacea," Blondie finished, "then I can get that bomb vest off of her and-"

And then a white blur came out of the sky and punched the Skrull in the head. There was Glory Girl… I wasn't even going to ask how she'd gotten here.

Then the Skrull got up, turned into a man Skrull, and then got all Rocky and The Thing-like.

"Oh," I said. "She's a Super Skrull. Crud."

Blondie turned to me. "...Super Skrull? If my power wasn't telling me that you were telling the truth… Who comes up with those names?"

"If it helps," Bruiser said, "I-or, the girl I was cloned from, was friends with a Super Skrull… In fact, I'm pretty sure the exact one that one was cloned from, and they said that it's a lot less pretentious sounding in their language." Then Bruiser's eyes and feet glowed pink and he jumped hard enough to shatter the pavement below him on take off, heading over to where Glory Girl and the Super Skrull were fighting. "Hey! Xavin! Can we work something out!?"

And then he and the Skrull were talking while punching each other.

I started heading towards Panacea to try and bring her over to Blondey but then I had to dodge and roll because of a giant dog getting thrown at me set off our Spider-Sense.

I turned to where it came from to see the biker guy with the skull helmet get thrown out of a cloud of inky black smoke. Some of it was coming out of him… Wait, did that mean he had demonic darkness powers like uh… What were their names? Something and Something… Cloak and Dagger! I wondered if he had powers like Cloak's while I helped him up just in time to see fuzzy naked blue spider-lady crawl out of the fading darkness.

"Uh, Mister Skull-Face-Biker-Man," I said. "If you were trying to blind the fuzzy naked blue Spider-Lady with your darkness smoke stuff-" Wait, Shadow Stalker had scary darkness powers too. Maybe her powers also came from that… I know there's a name for the kind of powers Cloak had but I can't remember it and-

 _"This one would like to remind Ashley that she should focus"_

"Sorry, uh, she's got spider-powers so she's probably got Spider-Sense-ESP," I finished. "Blinding her won't work."

He grunted "Thanks" at me and backed off to where dog mask girl was.

My attention got taken up when I heard the spider-lady hiss and clack something. "Kill… Eat… Fuck… Daddy… where Daddy? Kill."

I looked really close at the Spider-Lady. She was dirty, with mud or blood or something on her body and in her fur with the rain doing nothing to wash it away. Now that I was trying I could smell a lot of sweat on her, even though the rain. She looked sad… Or scared? It was hard to tell because she had six buggy eyes and a spider-mouth.

She looked right at me and said "Prey? Kill!" and leaped for me. I almost didn't doge in time because she didn't set off our spider-sense for some reason. And then, before I could land, something snagged my arms and legs and made me slam face first into the ground.

I pushed myself up and saw that I'd been hit with weblines and then I got tugged back and thrown through the air.

Spider-lady was apparently a bit smarter than she seemed because she spun me like a record and then cut me loose, sending me flying right into the Skrull, who was back to normal.

Except I didn't hit the Skrull. I hit an invisible wall. And slid down an invisible wall. Then the invisible wall vanished and the Skrull was standing over me with a thing fist. When she… he… The Skrull punched down, I punched back up with my own Thing-Fist.

There was a crunch, and suddenly my arm hurt really, really bad. I totally didn't scream.

 _"Osteo structure in the right appendage shattered from the impact,"_ Mister Snuggles said not that helpfully. _"Can mend, act to avoid further harm."_

I pushed myself back up from the ground with just my legs while my arm sort of just hung from the side… There were no tears in my eyes and even if there were it wouldn't matter because Mister Snuggles formed a mask and could drink them up before anyone noticed but there were no tears to drink up.

The Skrull looked down at me. "Is that a klyntar symbiote?"

I didn't sniffle. "Y-yeah."

The Skrull's thing fist melted away and then the Skrull held out both arms. "Flame on." And then both arms were on fire, which was enough of a problem that our Spider-Sense started going off and not stopping.

And then some web got wrapped around my middle and I got pulled back down to the floor.

"Xavin, er, Clone Xavin..." I heard Bruiser say, "I know we're..." He yawned. "I know that we're on different sides right now but Tattletale says that killing underaged heroes is the kind of thing that makes the heroes here shoot to kill on sight, so..."

"The klyntar are a parasitic species that invade worlds, hiding among the native population until they've bred the numbers great enough to enslave and ultimately consume all native life on a planet before moving onward, planet to planet, like a horde of locusts consuming all that they see and evolving, becoming more dangerous with each host and each generation" the Skrull said coldly. "This earth, this Universe will thank me for purging this creature now before it can multiply and consume them all."

And then the Skrull, Xavin, got a face full of bees. And a laser blast in one of… Her… boobies.

It gave me enough time for Mister Snuggles to finish fixing my arm and I was able to shift some scorpion pincers and cut the webs around my middle.

Then I heard the sound of spitting and could smell some funky chemicals and that was my only warning before I got a back full of acid.

 _"This sensation is best described as pain and irritation."_

I needed to move. I couldn't make wings or ocktacles with a back full of acid but I could still embiggen, kinda.

I was able to make my legs a little longer and that meant I could run and jump better if I was remembering how legs worked right.

I was about to jump up onto a building when my ankle got snagged by another one of the Spider-Lady's weblines and I tripped and hit the street face first.

She started dragging me back in time for me to miss a blast of fire from the Skull. Well, they weren't working together, that was a good sign.

 _"Caustic compound neutralized,"_ Minster Snuggles told me.

I smiled and sent out a pair of ocktacles back to grab spider lady while I used my stickem powers to anchor myself. I could feel spider-lady struggling and I pushed myself up so I could see the Skrull.

Then I threw Spider-Lady at the Skrull.

I didn't stick around to see if it hit. Instead, I pulled back the ocktacles and jumped as high as I could to another part of the street and almost landed on Clone Kraven, who sensed me coming and moved away.

Then I noticed that he had Evil Squirrel Girl over his shoulders and jumped for him again because I figured he was gonna run.

He side-stepped me and used his free arm to flip me over so that I landed on my back.

"You have power, child," Clone Kraven said, "but you lack the skill and determination to use it properly."

"I've got plenty of determination," I said as I flipped back up to my feet… then turned around because he was behind me.

"Da?"

"Yeah," I said, "I got the True Pacifist end in _Undertale_ and everything."

"...You played Undertale but you don't get a Pokemon reference because it's 'overrated,' " Evil Squirrel Girl said. "I hate you. Every, admittedly limited, shred of emotion I have is devoted to an unending hatred for you."

"Whatever," I said with a roll of my eyes. "It's not like you're the real Squirrel Girl."

"Ouch."

A couple bullets from one of the guys with guns bounced off of me but they weren't even enough to make my spider-sense buzz so I ignored them and tried to stare down the Kraven Clone.

Then something green, purple, and stretching landed next to me and collapsed into the Skrull. And that's four for four, she's a Super Skrull all right.

She flamed on again and that meant I had to focus on her, which let clone Kraven run off with a "Do svidaniya, child."

I was going to move to stop him or shout for someone else to but then I had to jump to avoid a blast of fire and… darn it.

Now the Skrull was making walls of fire. That wasn't good, because I was surrounded and it was getting really hot… I dodged blasts of fire as well as I could, thankful that my spider-sense still worked but it was really uncomfortable and Mister Snuggles was freaking out.

"Hold it together, Mister Snuggles."

 _"This one is not sure what it Ashley is referring to."_

"Just-" And then I fell to my hands and knees. At first, I didn't understand why but then I started feeling really weak for the first time in weeks.

The heat was making Mister Snuggles' strength leave him and… This must have been a bad day because I didn't have the strength to stand on my own.

I was barely able to look up. I wished I hadn't because the Skrull was up over me with a big ball of fire.

"Mister Snuggles... it's been an honor."

 _"This one does not understand."_

I closed my eyes. I was scared but what else could I do?

Then I heard a lot of buzzing and the Skrull screaming. I opened my eyes again and she was covered in every kind of bug I could think of. The fires were going out and there was Weaver and…

Today, my new foster sister took out an evil clone of Squirrel Girl _and_ beat a Super Skrull upside the head with a baton. Best sister ever.

The Skrull hit the ground and Weaver came over and picked me up with a grunt.

"You… Are heavier than you look," she said. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I just need a second."

"The fight's winding down," Weaver said. I could see that Kraven and Evil Squirrel Girl had escaped and that most of the guys with guns were either frozen in place or on the ground. A girl in the gang's colors was kneeling about a foot from her gun with her hands behind her head. Also, her pants were wet and she smelled like pee, so either she got beat by Weaver or Skull-Biker-Man because bugs and spooky darkness spewing skeleton-themed guys were the scariest things here.

Behind Weaver, I could see that Blondie was fiddling with Panacea's vest while Glory Girl stood guard. Blondie got the vest off, prompting Glory Girl to hug her sister, and then Weaver turned around and started walking over to them. The Undersiders all looked like they were getting ready to leave. Which made sense, if they were planning to rob the bank then that meant they were villains so sticking around was a bad idea for them. It looked like Bruiser was asleep slung over one of the dogosauruses.

And then the spider-lady landed in the streets, behind Weaver and in front of me. She looked right at me and hissed "Prey." Then she charged.

"Taylor, we need to move!"

But the Spider-Lady was faster than Taylor and got her ankles with a web line. We fell to the ground and then Spider-Lady was over us. She opened her mouth big and wide and lurched down for me. I closed my eyes and heard a wet crunch. But I didn't feel anything.

I opened my eyes to see that Taylor had put herself between me and the spider-lady, whose fangs were deep in Taylor's shoulder.

Spider-Lady let go and Taylor fell to the ground.

The next thing I knew, I was on top of the spider-lady with my claws in her chest.

Spider-Lady screamed like a little girl, pushed me, and then jumped to the next street over as soon as my claws popped out of her.

Taylor was still breathing. I picked her up and carried her over to where Panacea and Glory Girl were. They were still hugging.

"Hey, hey," I said, "we hate to interrupt but Weaver's hurt, bad… You're that healer right?"

The two girls pulled apart. "Okay, set her down," Panacea said. "I'll do what I can."

I put Taylor down, on her front so she wouldn't bleed as much, and Panacea stuck a finger in through the tears in Taylor's costume. The bleeding stopped pretty quick.

"Okay, the cuts don't go too deep," Panacea said, "the monster almost nicked an artery but the cuts aren't too much of a problem. I can fix that pretty quickly and then I'll just need a minute to neutralize the venom.

I tried to calm myself down. Taylor was gonna be fine, I wasn't gonna lose anybody else, and everything would be fine. I looked around a bit, saw the Undersiders were gone, Taylor started to stir and then my spider-sense buzzed.

I heard someone mutter something about earning their time in prison and turned to see that the gangster girl that peed herself had moved and grabbed her gun. Nobody else noticed her and she had the gun aimed right for-

I moved, jumping down the street to get to her and grabbed for her gun.

She struggled against me, yanking the gun back with every tug I mead. Really, I probably could have just pulled it out of her hands but she was a normal so if I used my full strength I might rip her arms off or something. A couple of the others were coming up behind her. Eventually, she shoved me and the gun went off.

A girl grunted in surprise just a second later.

I turned around and saw that Panacea, still kneeling by Taylor, was wide-eyed with a spot of red in the middle of her chest growing wider by the second.

She fell back, Glory Girl screamed. I heard someone tackle the girl with the gun but I didn't see who. Taylor woke up, pushed herself up and then swore when she saw Panacea.

"Vicky," Panacea said in a raspy voice. "Look at me."

Glory Girl kneeled down and took Panacea's hand. "Amy, don't talk. You're gonna be okay. Just, just save your strength and-"

Panacea was looking Glory Girl in the eyes. "...Love… You..."

And then her head rolled back.

"No." Glory Girl said. "No. No no no no no no." Then she screamed, holding her sister's body.

I should have just ripped the ganger girl's arms off. Now a hero was dead and it was all my fault.


	10. Action Outline of Chapter 7

People in the Space Battles thread commented that the chapter was a bit too difficult to follow. The chaotic pace was intentional, as such a fight has many unpredictable actors and Ashley lacks the training to handle such a chaotic situation.

As a compromise, I've made this outline to help explain the action step by step.

The previous chapter ended with the Wards being called to the Bank to find that it had been taken by The ABB and some Mercenaries Bakuda hired. Included among the Mercenaries was an Evil Clone of Squirrel Girl. Panacea was forced into a Bomb Vest.

The Chapter opens up with Ashley having a panic attack at the idea of fighting Evil Squirrel as well as the introduction of a Clone of Kraven the Hunter as the other Mercenary.

during the Panic Attack, Evil Squirrel Girl(Hereafter referred to as ESG,) started eating an (unstated in the text) Hostess brand Snack Pastry. Specifically a pie. As a result, what always happens to bad guys who eat hostess snacks in comic books happens: She was taken out offscreen. By Taylor.

'Bakuda' then starts to say something while holding up the remote for Amy's Bomb Vest, only for the remote to be shot from her hands by Tattletale.

The Undersiders have arrived to rob the bank as in canon and are pissed off that the ABB beat them to the punch. Tattletale reveals that 'Bakuda' is a body double. Underisders offer assistance to the Wards, partially out of anger at the Bad Boyz and their Marcs and partially becuase Panacea is too important to the city to let her get hurt.

The Undersiders' fifth member is revealed as an opposite sex clone of Molly Hayes, aka Princess Powerful/Bruiser of the Runaways. Hereafter referred to as Mike, his not yet in text civilian name.

A fight breaks out between multiple armed gangsters and superhumans, quickly turns to chaos that Ashley can't follow.

Ashley briefly winds up standing next to Tattletale and Mike. Tattletale informs the two kids that she can get Amy out of the bomb vest if someone can get her away from Bakuda's body double, who is revealed to be a Skrull hired as a third mercenary.

victoria, having been called by Dean offscreen, as in canon, flies in and attacks the Skrull. The Skrull reveals itself as a Super-Skrull and Mike recognizes them as a clone of Xavin, who was a runaway. Mike approaches to simultaneously help Victoria and try to work something out with Clone Xavin.

While trying to bring Amy over to Tattletale, Ashley is forced to briefly assist Grue in his conflict with a defective, feral clone of Itsy Bitsy, who had previously been mentioned to have been present at the offscreen Lung fight and has been referred to as Lung's "pet." This brings Clone Itsy's attention to Ashley, declaring her "prey." Clone Itsy attacks.

This attack brings her to the attention of Clone Xavin and after a brief exchange, the Skrull recognizes Ashley's costume as a Klyntar Symbiote and, recognizing the threat that corrupt Klyntar pose, moved to purge it. Ashley now has the two most dangerous hostiles focused on her specifically.

After an initial struggle, Ashley relocates to another part of the battlefield, encountering Clone Kraven in the process of extracting ESG and feeling the battle. A brief exchange is made, but Ashley is prevented from stopping their escape by Clone Xavin engaging again.

Clone Xavin almost succeeds in killing Ashley by using human torch powers to heat up the area, taking advantage of a well-documented weakness of the Klyntar, only to be swarmed by all of Weaver's bugs and beaten upside the head because been though it's been less than a weak, Weaver's already in protective Big Sis Mode.

By this time Tattletale has freed PAnacea, the Undersiders are preparing to leave, and most of the hostiles are dealt with.

Itsy clone attacks once again, almost taking a big bite out of Ashley, but Taylor takes the hit and gets poisoned, losing consciousness.

Ashley blacks out and wakes up with her claws in the Itsy Clone, who is now suitably spooked and goes into flight mode. Both the Undersiders and the Xavin Clone fled while Ashley was blacked out. Unmentioned in the text, but the Wards were a bit too distracted by Ashley going rage monster on the Itsy clone to stop anyone from fleeing.

Ashly carries Weaver over to Panacea, who begins healing her.

Ashley's Spider-Sense buzzes, alerting her to a previously surrendering Gangster(Yan, unmentioned in the text) going for her gun.

Ashley is the first to notice and attempts to disarm her when she sees where Yan is aiming, but during the struggle, there's a misfire.

Panacea, still healing Taylor, is hit in the center of the chest, piercing her heart.

Taylor wakes up.

Panacea declares her love for Vicky(Who spoilers, misunderstood,) and is then introduced to Gwen Stacy.

Ashley, who was avoiding the use of her Super Strength to avoid unnecessarily harming Yan, regrets it and blames herself for Amy's death.


	11. Chapter 8

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

Ashley hadn't said a word since Panacea died. Mister Snuggles had spoken through her, sharing a few names, but that was it. (And still creepy as shit.) I was holding her close, but she was just staring at a wall.

We were all in Wards HQ. The team strewed around the room. Everyone looked down. Gallant had taken off his helmet, revealing himself as Dean Stansfield, son of a wealthy family and Glory Girl's on again, off again boyfriend. Director Piggot was there with us, standing in the room with a stern expression on her face.

I… I felt like shit. I was exhausted and the room felt way too hot but I was more concerned about how Ashley was doing.

Shadow Stalker walked into the room. "Heard what happened. Sucks." She looked at Ashley. "Is killer gonna be alright?" Ashley flinched.

"She'll be fine," I answered. I actually wasn't sure but the less interest Sophia had in my foster sister the better.

"Take a seat, Shadow Stalker," the director said, "the others have just finished informing me of the situation."

Shadow Stalker, instead of sitting leaned up against a far wall.

The director gave no outward sign of annoyance. "Just so I have this straight: All the new faces, Bruiser, Chitter, Super Skrull, Kraven and Lung's new spider-pet, Jorogumo, are all clones of people from Cuddlebug's home universe. This is correct?"

We all gave our affirmations.

She gave a disgruntled sigh and continued. "After Weaver captured Chitter, the squirrel controlling master, the Undersiders approached, destroyed the remote detonator for Panacea's bomb vest and revealed that Bakuda was, in fact, a body double, called a Super Skrull." She grimaced saying that name. "The Undersiders had a new member, Bruiser. Meanwhile Kraven and Chitter were there as Mercenaries of the ABB."

More nods.

"Then Kraven and several ABB members who'd been hiding in the bank attacked. All of you, with assistance from the Undersiders, engaged."

She looked to Aegis and Browbeat. "You two initially engaged Kraven specifically, but he proved too fast and agile, but between Vista's spatial distortions and the darkness that Grue generated he was able to use the terrain to his advantage to escape you. Aegis then engaged with armed, unpowered ABB members. Browbeat initially engaged Jorogumo but had to disengage as the fight was dominated by the Undersiders Grue and Hellhound."

She looked directly at Aegis. "Later on, you saw Kraven fleeing with Chitter upon his shoulder but were occupied by preventing Vista from being shot and could not intercept. Is this correct?"

Both boys gave their affirmations.

"Vista and Gallant," Piggot said, addressing those two. "You played support the entire time with battlefield control on Vista's part and well-timed emotion blasts to incapacitate gunmen in Gallant's. Gallant attempted to blast Kraven after Aegis lost track of him but before he fled but he was able to dodge. Vista, you cited that Bruiser, glowing pink, punched Jorogumo out of the street and then immediately fell to the ground and passed out. This is correct?"

Vista sighed, and then confirmed with a "yes." Gallant nodded silently.

"Clockblocker you… Spent the first half of the fight overly concerned with the fact that you'd recently had squirrels in your pants and then spent the rest of the fight freezing gangsters." The director blinked. "You specifically cited an incident where Regent, of the Undersiders, made the girl who would later shoot Panacea spasm to the point of urinating upon herself while simultaneously making you aware of a gangster sneaking up on you."

"Yeah, that's how it went."

"And Weaver, you focused primarily on using your insects to keep a grip on the terrain and distract enemy actors," she finished, "not wanting to risk lethally poisoning non-powered hostiles when there were other options available to yourself. However you twice directly attacked the 'Super-Skrull' in response to attacks on Cuddlebug."

"Yeah," I said… Honestly, I was hoping we'd be finished here soon. I wasn't feeling good and Ashley clearly needed… Something…. Something that wasn't being here. "After beating the Skrull upside the head with my baton I tried to bring Cuddlebug back to safety but Jorogumo returned to the street and attacked us. I wasn't fast enough to avoid her, but I was able to put myself between her and Cuddlebug and take the bite. I passed out after that and woke up after Panacea had been shot."

"Cuddlebug kind of freaked out when Weaver went down," Vista added since Ashley wasn't talking. "Not quite like when she was sparring with Shadow Stalker but her claws ended up in Jorogumo's body. The Undersiders slipped away and the Skrull ran off while we were all distracted by Cuddle's freak out and Jorogumo ran for it."

"Which," the director concluded, "brings us to the part I'm confused about. While mending Weaver's bite, Panacea was killed by an accidental discharge when Cuddlebug attempted to disarm the woman who, after noticing that no one was paying attention to her, went back on her surrender and for whatever reason thought that grabbing her firearm in a threatening manner was an intelligent course of action." The director sighed. "I have two questions. First, Clockblocker… What did you do when Panacea was shot?"

Clockblocker looked down. "At first, I didn't realize she'd been hit. I heard the gunshot and turned in time to see Cuddlebug and the girl fighting over the gun. In hindsight, I should have guessed that something had happened when I saw Cuddlebug let go of the gun but at the time my first instinct was to take out the gunman-I ran for her. Aegis was faster and tackled her, and a few seconds later I got there and froze her to make sure. Then I noticed that Glory Girl was holding a bloody Panacea and saying 'no' over and over again. I rushed over but by the time I got there she wasn't breathing and she didn't have a pulse. I-I tried to freeze her. I kept it up till the EMTs got there… I had to stop when they got to work and they did... everything... I don't even know... but they were yelling that there was too much damage and they couldn't keep working on her if I was still freezing her so they made me stop and... and... they were at it for... I don't even know how long, but they eventually said it was too late for anything they could have done." He was fidgeting with his hands. "I guess I could have tried to keep her frozen until another healer could be called in, but… I didn't know that at the time. Maybe if I'd gone to her first instead of the shooter. Maybe... We... I didn't know they couldn't save her... I'm sorry."

"Okay," Director Piggot said with a raised hand. Then she walked over and looked down at Ashley. "Cuddlebug, I need you to look at me."

Ashley looked up.

"I'm not going to ask why you noticed the woman with the gun and decided that you alone had to deal with it. I'm not going to ask why a cape who can lift five tons overhead was struggling to take a gun from a normal, nonpowered woman." The director was speaking evenly and very deliberately. "What I am going to ask is why a girl who can generate claws able to cleanly slice through a foot of high quality 9 gauge steel with the ease of a hot knife through soft butter didn't just claw the gun apart?"

Ashley, without a word, extracted herself from my arms, walked halfway across the room… And started beating herself over the head and pulling her own hair. "Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid! I'm so freaking stupid!"

As soon as she started hitting herself, I jumped up and managed to grab her wrists by the last 'stupid.'

"Stop, stop this Cuddle-"

"Shut up, Mister Snuggles!" Ashley shouted, interrupting me. "She's dead and it's my fault and… Ahh!"

I wanted to say something. Anything, but I couldn't think of anything and… And it felt like my veins were on fire. All of my muscles clenched up, forcing me to let go of her wrists and stumble.

This snapped her out of her self-loathing funk. "T-Weaver?" She said, sounding more frightened than I'd heard anyone ever. "Are you okay?"

"I… I don't feel so good."

I fell and landed on the floor. I couldn't move and it was almost impossible to breathe… Why was the room shaking? It was getting hard to follow what was happening.

"...Taylor?" A Girl's voice-Ashley, even more, frightened than before.

"Taylor!?" Another voice, Shadow Stalker… Fuck!

"Get her mask off," one of the boys shouted. No, not in front of….

Everything went black.

 **Snuggles the Symbiote**

It had been a week since Taylor had… The doctors called it an 'episode.' They'd said that there was some chemical in her system that made flip out and go into a coma. The only explanation they had was that Panacea had been shot before she finished curing the poison from Jorogumo's bite. That made me feel even worse about screwing up so bad.

The doctors said Taylor was stable and that scans said there was no brain damage, so she'd wake up… eventually.

Mister Hebert had been angry… Not at me, or anyone in particular as far as I could tell, but he looked really angry and I'd heard someone say that he'd yelled at the Director and Mister Armsmaster about why there weren't any adult heroes at the bank. I only saw him when they let us visit Taylor in the infirmary at the Rig. Otherwise… He was either working or taking care of things. I hadn't even been home since… My room wasn't' done and sleeping in Taylor's without her felt wrong so I'd been staying in the room they gave us in Wards HQ.

I was there now. It was a simple room, with two simple beds, a desk, and a wall mirror. Taylor and I hadn't expected to be staying here often. I had Mister Snuggles in our Cuddlebug costume but without the mask and I was staring into the mirror.

"So when we did the fiery eyes thing and so how Evil Shadow Stalker was," I said, "it's because of how angry and upset she was making us, right?"

 _"This one suspects that Ashley's emotional state played a factor."_ I took that as a yes.

"So," I said while closing my eyes, tight "if I think really hard about the kinds of things Shadow Stalker made me think about." I spent a while, thinking back to when mommy and daddy… When the evil doctor was… and a week ago with Panacea and Taylor. I sniffed and opened my eyes.

The parts that were normally green were glowing a scary looking red and I had… not a ring… kind of a leaf shape maybe? A shape of fire around my eyes. Kind of like a picture I'd seen of a CGI Anime Girl I saw once. The point was that my eyes were glowing red and had fire coming out of them. And steam.

"Okay, scary fire eyes on cue," I said. "...Now we need to check if they're what let us see how evil Sophia was." Then I raised a hand up close t the fire coming out of my right eye. It did not feel warm. Like, at all. "Mister Snuggles? Is that bothering you at all?"

 _"This one is not harmed or repulsed by flames these ones generate. This one is confused and frightened by the implications."_

"Yeah, that is weird." Hmm. I couldn't test my evil vision unless I knew where an evil person was. "Okay uh, let's practice something else until we know where Shadow Stalker is..." I let the fire go out.

I took a deep breath and tried to stretch my arms out as far as I could. "Still only a couple of inches… Most symbiotes can do a lot more with stretching and shapeshifting than we can..."

 _"Other klyntar in your memory are older, more experienced, of later generations, and far more powerful."_

"Oh yeah, that's right?" I said. "You said we were able to stretch as much as we can from DNA from someone else and that it messed with our X-Genes?"

 _Affirmative._

"Well, the only people I know of with stretchy powers are Mister Fantastic and Ms. Marvel and Mister Fantastic's kid is a mutant so..." Honestly, it made sense. Ms. Marvel was an Inhuman. She was cool, one of the only prominent Inhumans who didn't suck, but stuff that was good for Inhumans was bad for Mutants. It just made sense that mixing them together caused problems.

 _"This one cannot fault Ashley's logic but wishes to state that it seems irresponsible to speculate based on a sample size of just two beings._ "

"I guess," I admitted. "It's just if we can figure out how our stretching works then we can maybe see if that'll let us stretch more and then-" There was a knock at my door. "Who is it?"

"It's Vista," came well, Vista's voice.

"Come in."

She did just as I turned to greet her. She looked right at my face.

"What?" I asked. "Are my eyes still on fire?" I could have sworn I'd turned it off. I looked back at the mirror and yeah, they were out.

"Sorry, I just forgot that you weren't Weaver's actual little sister for a bit." I shrugged and turned back as she was approaching me. "Anyway, my school's closed today for an administration thing. We've got HQ to ourselves until Arcadia lets out so I figured I'd, you know, check on you."

"Why do I need to be checked on?" I asked with my head tilted.

"Because I know you've been sleeping on base all week but this is the first time I've seen you since the debriefing," she said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Do you even know about the breakout?"

"Breakout?" I said with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah," Vista said, "they told us after everything calmed down, the reason why the Bad Boyz had their mercenaries down at the bank was a distraction: The Real Bakuda and Oni Lee hit the Rig and sprung Lung, so now he's free again and planning who knows what."

"Lung… He's the guy that turns into a flaming lizard, right?"

"A dragon."

"No," I said, "not a dragon. He's not five hundred feet tall like Fin Fang Foom and he's not cat-sized and cute like Lockheed. He's nothing." Mister Snuggles whispered something in my ear. "No Mister Snuggles, Grendel wasn't a dragon, Grendel was a dark elf."

"Oh… Okay," Vista said. "Anyway, what have you been up to and… Stuff."

"Wait," I said, "is the breakout the reason why some of the walls in the Rig were made of pudding last week?"

"Probably," Vista said. "But seriously, how are you? You took everything that happened really hard, and… Are you okay?"

"I guess I'm doing okay," I said. "I'm mostly just training or practicing with my powers. I tried booking time in the weight room but apparently, they don't want us working out too hard till we get to a certain age because it can mess you up when you're older." I shrugged. "And what's this about them not letting us learn CQC until we're at least fourteen?"

"I know, right?" Vista said. "It's some legal crap about how they're not allowed to make us child soldiers-most Wards don't see as much action as we do here, kids our age are usually like, Girl Scouts with Super Powers." She shrugged. "So we get taught how to throw a basic punch and have to tough it out for a few years because the rules were made to protect those kids instead of to protect the fringe cases like us. It's stupid." Then she looked back up at me really close. "Wait, you've been training and practicing with your powers most of the time you've been here? Like...?"

"All day, every day," I answered. That made Vista look at me funny.

"That," she said, "isn't healthy."

"I made a mistake," I said slowly. "In the heat of the moment, I forgot what my powers could do. I thought about it, there were a couple of ways I could have taken the gun away. Because I forgot, because of that mistake, a hero is dead-and the heroes in this universe _stay_ dead for some reason-and someone I care about an awful lot is sick and isn't gonna get better anytime soon. There's nothing I can do about it now, but I can make sure I don't make that mistake again," I explained, "and that means I need to know exactly what my powers are, what they're capable of, and what I can do with them."

"Okay," Vista said, "but seriously, Cuddlebug-"

"Ashley."

"Huh?"

"You've seen my face and you've seen Taylor's face and know her name. There's no reason why I should keep my name secret from you," I said.

"Oh, okay then Ashley, you can call me Missy then," she replied, "but still. I can understand not wanting to screw up again but there's no way that just… Have you done anything other than…?"

"Not really," I said with a shrug.

"Okay," she said while taking my slightly embiggened hand, "you are gonna come with me, we are gonna sit on the couch out in the common room, and you are gonna stop beating yourself up about what happened and relax for a little bit. Okay?"

"If I have to but… I don't know how to… I don't know anything here, so what am I supposed to do? Look up fanfiction about heroes I've never heard of or watch TV that's apparently radically different from what I'm used to?"

While dragging me out into the common room, Missy hummed. "I think I've got an idea," she said, "you sit here," she pointed to the couch. "I'm gonna get my laptop and introduce you to Peat and Fenn."

So I shrank my arm back up and sat there, wondering who this Peat and Fenn were, while waiting for Missy to get back. I ended up trying to do my claws and Thing Fists are the same time but no matter what I didn't I couldn't have both at the same time. Unless you count having Righty as claws and Lefty as a Thing Fist. I shifted them back as soon as I heard Missy coming back.

"Okay, so Peat and Fenn are this pair of Case 53 kids who don't really trust the PRT and are afraid of cars or something," Missy explained "They're basically traveling across the country on foot having adventures and everybody loves them because they're adorable. Lots of people keep track of what they're up to and people post fanart and photos of them and stuff like that. I don't normally go for this kind of thing but you seem like the kind of girl who likes cutesy feel-good stories like this."

"Okay." I blinked. "What's a Case 53?"

"Um," Missy said… "Uh, where you're from, do you have capes who end up looking uh… Not human? Like, weird skin colors, horns, permanently made of something that's not flesh and blood? That kind of thing."

"Yeah," I said. "There's lots of Mutants like that… so like, these kids go from place to place… And nobody hates them? Nobody throws rocks or tries to drive them away or hurt them?" I… I couldn't understand that. If a pair of Mutant children were going around like that they'd be…

Missy stopped filling with her computer. "You… You said there'd been genocides against people like you… Seriously, how bad is it that..."

"The government once built giant robots whose sole job was to round up and kill Mutants," I said. "The Sentinel Program. Other people have made more since then, but… Seriously? There are no superhumans here who just get irrationally hated and feared for no reason? Nobody that's treated as less than a person because of the kind of powers they have?"

"...Okay, so after you left on the day we met, Armsmaster filled us in on the Case 81 stuff," yeah, that's what Mister Armsmaster had called me the day I met Taylor, cause I was from another world. "I think, maybe, later you should talk to them about forgetting about trying to find you a way home because it sounds like you'd be better off staying here."

"Yeah, Taylor said that too."

"Anyway, for right now you and I are gonna forget about stuff like that and about recent problems and we're just gonna sit here and read sappy stories about kids doing kid things," she finished pulling something up. "Oh hey, they made some new friends."

She showed me the monitor and it showed pictures of busted up motorcycles and lots of vines and stuff forming rings around an old country road with four kids in the middle of a street. Well, three kids and a bundle of twigs shaped like a toddler. In the middle were two kids with long white hair, dark blue skin, yellow eyes, pointy ears, two red horns coming out of the top of their heads, and fangs. They were both dressed in outfits they'd clearly picked out for themselves and couldn't be older than eight. They each had a silver Omega symbol tattooed on their cheeks, one on the left and one on the right. The bundle of sticks was off to the side while standing behind them was an older girl, maybe Missy's age, and-

"-That's a symbiote," I said. The girl was dressed in an outfit, mostly white but with black accents. It actually kind of made me think of a Little Red Riding Hood outfit, except white and black instead of red and whatever else. Under the hooded cape, she had on the same kind of mask I wore when Mister Snuggles covered my face: Spider-Man without the web-lines. There was a black Venom logo on her blouse.

Missy took the computer back and scrolled down a little bit. "It says here than Peat and Fenn were attacked by members of the Fallen, uh… I'll explain who those are later, for reasons unknown but two other parahuman children happened to be in the area and came to their rescue. The fight attracted attention from the nearby town and the Fallen were arrested."

"So… Yay?" I said. I wasn't sure how to feel about another girl with a symbiote out there. Especially… If I didn't know better I'd say she was Anti-Venom but the Anti-Venom symbiote was destroyed to cure the Spider-Flu a little while back.

"They were interviewed after the attack," Missy continued. "Peat and Fenn were too shaken to comment but the girl gave her name as Klara. She said that she wasn't sure where she was, that she'd been approached by a man while she was tending the garden in her foster parents' house and he sprayed her with this sweet-smelling gas. She had trouble breathing for a bit and the next thing she knew she was covered in white goo and a woman with a nice hat was asking her to translate for someone named Groot-Two in exchange for curing her allergy. The bundle of twigs commented 'Je suis Groot.' Repeatedly. It's apparently the only thing he can say. They don't know how they ended up where they did. Peat and Fenn resisted attempts to bring them back to town for medical check-ups after the attack and Klara and Groot Two took their side so they're back on the road. Fenn had apparently been hurt in the attack but a hug from Klara healed him..."

"Can you do that?" Missy asked.

"No," I said, "some Symbiotes can heal their hosts but the only one that can heal other people with a touch is Anti-Venom. Curing sickness and healing injuries is what it does. But it was destroyed so… Sweet smelling gas..." I remembered something from a while ago. Thanos had invaded the Earth and picked a fight with the Inhumans. That was when Black Bolt set off the bomb that made the Terrigen Mists spread around the world. I remembered the smell of the Terrigen from when it spread through Manhattan later that day. The one time my chemical resistance helped me instead of hurting me. "Someone went to my world, deliberately gave a mutant girl M-Pox and then cured her by turning her into a new Anti-Venom… Just to get a translator?"

 _"Ashley, while this one appreciates an increase in adrenaline secretion it is perhaps not wise to be getting angry right now._

"Hey, this could be good news," Missy. said. "If you told people that she was a high-end healer, then the next time she pops up they might convince her to sign on with us and she could wake up Weaver." I looked right at her and she shrank back. "Sorry."

"I get it, you're trying to make me feel better, but it'd never work out. If healers are as rare as everyone says here, they'd probably put her somewhere where she could heal lots and lots of people. Unless she's near here…?"

"The Article said they were in Alabama."

"So yeah… This sucks," I said. I didn't start crying. "My family got killed because bad people wanted me for their experiments. Then I escape, find myself in a completely different world, but I find someone who cares, someone I start to care about, who invites me into her family, and then she gets poisoned and falls into a coma she can't be woken up from because I accidentally got the White Mage killed."

I definitely wasn't crying.

"C-Ashley," Missy said, "It's gonna be okay. They, they said that Weaver's gonna wake up eventually, right?"

"Yeah… I just… This is on me. I keep asking myself 'what would Spider-Man do' in a situation like this, but it's not helping..."

"Ashley," Missy said, "sometimes when you're in a situation that you think sucks, there's nothing you can do but do your best and hope that it gets better." She blinked. "I mean, normally when I think that it's in the hopes that people will take me more seriously, but I think it applies here. There's nothing you can do. I mean, what could you do? Bring in Jorogumo on your own so they can make an antidote for the venom?"

"Yeah. That'd be stupid. Uh. I've gotta use the bathroom."

I went back down the hall, but instead of using the bathroom I waited a few minutes and then snuck into the elevator. I set it to go up to the lobby and had Mister Snuggles switch into jeans and a hoodie that I pulled up over my head.

I smiled: Vista's given me the answer. 'What would Spider-Man do?' If Spider-Man had gotten someone he loved hurt, if he'd gotten someone killed, he'd make it right. He'd take _Responsibility._ I wasn't sure how I could make things right with Panacea's family, but I knew that I could make things right with Taylor. I knew what Jorogumo smelled like and this city couldn't be that big. I'd find her, they'd make an antidote to her venom, and once Taylor woke up I could figure out what to do for Glory Girl and her parents.


	12. Chapter 9

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

The city was bigger than I thought. The sun was up in the middle of the sky by the time I'd managed to get to the bank.

It'd only been a week since it'd been attacked but it was already back in business. The street was busy, but that was okay because I didn't need to cross over to the bank itself. I was across from it, on the curb where Panacea had landed when she was shot. The blood was all cleaned up, but I could still smell it.

I stood there and I took in a big whiff. It'd been raining during the fight, and it'd been a week, and there had been a lot of people around her since, but I could still barely catch Jorogumo's scent. There was something really bitter about it. Then I took a second to try and remember which direction I'd punched Jorogumo in.

 _"Ashley struck one designated Jorogumo over the far side of the street."_

"Thanks, Mister Snuggles," I whispered… Okay, what were the rules for crossing a busy street again? Oh, yeah.

I found a crosswalk and but before I could cross over I heard footsteps turning in my direction.

"Hello?" A woman's voice called out to me. I looked and saw a blonde lady in a black dress suit. She looked and smelled kinda familiar.

"Um... Hi" I said with a small wave.

"Little girl?" She asked, "are you here alone?"

"No," I said. It wasn't technically a lie.

"Are your parents around, then?" The woman asked.

"Uh, yeah," I said with a big smile. "I'm going to meet them now."

She kneeled down and looked me in the eyes. There were dark circles around hers. "I raised two girls. I know when a little girl is lying."

Darn it. "Do you work in the bank?" I asked.

"I do not," she said. "Don't try to change the subject, little girls shouldn't be in the streets alone."

"I'm… Looking for someone," I said. That was the truth.

"And who is it, exactly, that you're looking for?"

Crud. No, I can't say I'm a superhero looking for a villain. "I'm really uncomfortable answering a stranger's questions."

"It's okay," she said. "You can trust me, I'm a superhero."

"Yeah," I said. "And I'm Thor, God of Thunder. Pardon that I don't prove it, I left Mjolnir in my other pants."

 _"Why is Ashley engaging in the sarcasm?"_

"...Okay, little girl," the woman said, "Since you don't recognize me, and judging from that New York accent, I take it that you're not from around here?" I shook my head. "Okay, first, there's a powerful gang of Neo-Nazis in this city who are rather fond of Norse iconography. I doubt they'd take kindly to a non-white person making such jokes and they _will no_ t hesitate to attack someone in their home or hurt a child." I made a mental note to find a sledgehammer so that I could practice my religion upside the heads of some Nazi-jerkfaces.

The woman summoned a little glowing knife in her hand. I stepped back because it felt really warm. "I'm Carol Dallon, Brandish, of New Wave."

Oh.. That's why she seemed familiar. She was Glory Girl's and Panacea's Mommy… Which meant…

"Then you're here because..." I looked back to the curb where I'd been standing a little bit ago.

"Why I'm here isn't important right now," Mrs. Brandish said. "Right now, I'm more concerned about why a little girl is wandering around, alone, near a busy street in the middle of the day."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"If there's someone to apologize to for this, it shouldn't be me," the woman said.

"No, I mean..." I pulled my hood carefully to make sure nobody could see my face and then had Mister Snuggles form my Cuddlebug mask over half my face. "I was there. It's my fault… I'm sorry."

Mrs. Brandish was quiet for a second. "Alright then," she said a bit loudly while making the knife disappear, "I guess I can make sure you get home safe."

She took my hand and started pulling me away. I had the mask go back inside and basically followed her, not knowing what else I could do other than yank my arm away and well… I was still getting the hang of strength levels between 'if Spider-Man was my size' and 'completely helpless.'

"So..." Mrs. Brandish began once we were away from the main street. "You're the refugee with the parasite."

"Symbiote," I corrected automatically. "Wait… Did they tell you? Director Piggot's gonna be mad."

"Then she should have had them sign nondisclosure agreements," Mrs. Brandish said snarkily. "Now… Why were you really at the bank?"

"Tracking a villain," I said. This was a lot easier now that I didn't have to be 100% secretive.

"Okay," the woman said. "First, I'm going to take you to PRT headquarters. Then I'm going to have talks with the director about sending children out alone on plain clothes operations when they should be in school."

"...Uh, they don't know I'm out here…" Also, I haven't been enrolled in any schools yet, but she didn't need to know that.

The woman blinked. "...what villain are you looking for… And why are you doing it in plain clothes, alone, without permission or supervision?"

"Jorogumo, the Spider-Lady," I said. "She bit Weaver during the fight and now she's really sick. I was hoping that if I captured her, they could make an anti-venom and Weaver would get better faster."

"...And you're looking for her here, why?" Mrs. Brandish was all um… What's the word when grown-ups get tired of talking to kids or stupid people? Oh, yeah, exasperated.

I tapped my nose. "We have a really good sense of smell. I was trying to get a scent trail."

"Okay, okay," Mrs. Brandish said. "Now why does it have to be you, specifically, who finds the spider?"

"...Weaver got bit because she put herself in front of me when Jorogumo tried to get me," I explained. "Panacea was trying to heal her… But then she got shot because I screwed up trying to disarm someone." I blinked. My vision was getting cloudy for some reason. "So she wasn't able to finish curing the poison. Because of my mistake, someone I care about a whole lot is really sick and the only person who can fix them is dead. … I can't, I can't make up for getting you're daughter killed, and I'm so sorry about that, but I can still try to keep T-Weaver from… It's my fault all this happened, so fixing it is my responsibility."

"Child," Mrs. Brandish asked, "How old are you?"

"...Ten."

"And how much training did you get before you were sent out that day?"

"Does power testing count?"

"Then your responsibility for what happened to Amy is negligible," she finished.

"If you say so," I said. She could say it, but that didn't make me not feel like it was.

"Amy is dead," Mrs. Brandish said, "because the Azn Bad Boyz and their mercenaries attacked the bank, because the Parahuman Response Team sent untrained children to do the Protectorate's job, and because _I_ let her go to the bank alone when... If a group of criminals and villains hadn't chosen to break the law, if even one member of the Protectorate had been there, or if I'd been a better parent, my.. My daughter would still be alive."

"...Would you like a hug?" She sounded like she needed a hug, and honestly, it'd been a week since I hugged someone, which is the second longest I'd ever gone without getting or giving a hug.

"I'll be fine… I've just..." I think she swallowed or something. "Last week, I was called to the morgue, saw the girl I'd taken into my home a decade ago lying lifeless on a cold, metal table and I realized that I hadn't been the mother she deserved and now I'd never get the chance to give her the love she really needed. Seven days planning a funeral, a morning burying my child, and I still can't… I came to the bank, where… to try and make sense of everything, and..."

 _"Why is one designated Brandish confiding in Ashley? Ashley and Brandish have only just met."_ I mind-shrugged back at Mister Snuggles.

"Are you _sure_ you wouldn't like a hug?"

"I'm sure," she said certainly. "Now, what am I going to do with you?"

I blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I can't in good conscience just let you go after an adult supervillain on your own," Mrs. Brandish said, "at the same time I doubt you're just going to give up on-"

She was interrupted by a loud banging sound from what sounded like decently far away. Without even thinking I shifted into full Cuddlebug costume and took off running towards it, ignoring Mrs. Brandish when she shouted: "Wait, where are you going!?"

People were too busy running away from a 'cape fight' to notice a kid skittering up a building and jumping across rooftops, which let me get there really fast.

Good thing too, because judging from the sounds of banging, crashing, and occasional zapping the fight that was happening was getting worse and more violent and-and there was a gunshot. I called up my wings-I couldn't fly, but flapping just right gave me a bit more distance on jumps.

A minute or two later I had to stop as I was, well, at the fight. Two people in shiny metal armor were fighting. One looked like regular metal armor with no weapon, the other was in some kind of powered armor or Mech Suit, seven feet tall and really bulky… The armor was like a cheap, bulky knock of Iron Man suit combined vaguely Viking-like, with a skull-helmet that kind of made me think of the Punisher's logo, and he was carrying a staff with an old-timey war-hammer floating at the end in some kind of force field. There were some boys in gang colors, but not ABB colors… One of them had an eighty-eight on a red armband and another boy had a swastika tattooed on his arm. They all had guns.

"You zee, Chew…," the man in the bulky powered armor said, "You might control zee bover of electromagnedism, put I, Donar, am its master."

"...Turn off whatever infernal device that prevents me from forming my own electromagnetic fields," the other man said, "and we'll see the truth of that, you Nazi bastard."

That voice… I'd heard recordings of it. I got a better look at the one the obvious Nazi Supervillain called Chew… the armor was the wrong color, and really banged up, and from what I'd heard I'd never have expected him to be kneeling in pain or exhaustion, but otherwise, there was no mistaking it.

That was Magneto. Or at least his clone.

...So a Nazi Super Villain is fighting a Super-Terrorist... "Mister Snuggles, who do we root for here? I mean, I kind of want them both to lose."

 _"This one would suggest supporting the one that's least likely to exterminate Ashley and ones like Ashley based on arbitrary genetic or phenotypic traits."_

"Okay," I admitted, "but if he says anything about Mutants being 'Homo Superior' I'm gonna punch him in the groin."

At this point, the wings would just get in the way, so I had them melt away. I crouched down on all fours and wiggled and shifted a bit so that I could jump just right. When I saw an opening, the Nazi, Donar, standing over Cloneto with his funky hammer-staff raised high, and then I leaped for them.

I gave a soft "snikt" and popped my claws just in time to tear through the staff in mid-air and land, with the pieces, next to the nazi-gangsters. The force field at the end sputtered and fizzled and then the old-looking war-hammer hit the asphalt with a loud and heavy thud.

"'Sup," I said casually. "We're Cuddlebug, and we like hugs. We're the best we are at what we do, and what we do is punch jerkfaces in the groin."

 _"This one would like to state for the record that it did not agree to that catchphrase."_

Everyone was staring at me now.

"Oh, look, ein little child! How cute, sche zinks sche can pe ein hero," Donar said cheerfully. He looked at the gangsters behind me. "Kill her," he said, suddenly cold and all business.

I turned back to look at them. One looked down at me, then up to Donar. "Look, um… Mister Donar, I get that you're new in town and a big-wig Gesellschaft Tinker, but it's been a week to the day that Panacea died." He gulped, and I turned to see Donar was… I couldn't tell if he was glaring, but it seemed like he was glaring. "If-if we kill a little kid cape now, this time tomorrow the city will be swarming with cops, FBI, PRT, Protectorate, the God Damned Army, and everyone else and anybody who even looks like they might just know a villain or someone in the gangs will be hunted down and slaughtered."

"Dummkopf," the Tinker(which was the super-science one, right?) said calmly. "Zee child proke zee Mjölnir sdaff. It vill take me veeks to puild another. Kill zee prat."

Before they could do anything I sprouted a couple ocktacles and sent them out to grab and tear through everyone's guns like I should have a week ago.

The boys looked down at their mangled weapons, then to me, then to Donar, then back to me. Then they all ran.

Most of them ran away but the one with the swastika tattoo went face first into a brick wall and seemed to pass out.

The clang of steel on steel made me realize that Donar had facepalmed. "Zee, zis is vy ve pack in Eurobe don't embloy untrained teenagers."

So then I remembered that he'd called his weapon the Mjolnir staff. What kind of self-respecting Thorite would I be if I didn't punish a Nazi jerkface for the heretical and blasphemous act of associating one of Earth's Mightiest Heroes with History's Greatest Monsters? And hey, there's a convenient hammer I can use to practice my religion upside his head, just like I'd thought about earlier.

I reached for the hammer that had been part of his staff, gripped it tightly around the handle...

And completely failed to lift it.

I reached down with both hands and tried again I mean, it had made a loud thud and it had to have been in a floaty field for a reason so maybe it was just ridiculously heavy.

I gave it the greatest pull I could manage, and... Still nothing

Then I looked down at it… I saw the inscription. No, that's not possible. You can't clone a hammer.

"Whosoever holds this hammer," I read aloud, "if he be worthy..."

"Schall bozess zee bover of _Thor!_ " Donar laughed, _almost_ good-naturedly. "Yeah, zat hammer is vy I call myzelf Donar. I found it in ein crader on ein trip to Iceland in Ninedeen-Eighty-Zix, it took me ein year to create zee anti-graffity field I neeted to moffe it pack to mein laporadory." He laughed again, more like a crazy guy. "I zink it's zee real zing, I'fe managed to draw _unkodly_ amounts of bover from it."

...We'd only gotten here two and a half weeks ago. Even if you could clone a hammer, there's no way that it could have been here in 86…

Thor Odinson, God of strength and Thunder, existed here once, and something had happened to him.

Donar threw his arms up. "Und I zink I'fe only tabed zee zurface. Vy, once I'fe accezed its full bover, I could broffide vole nazions vith clean energy." He gestured wildly. "Cleanze endire cities vorth of unteziraples und zee inferior in ein zingle flasch of Diffine Light. Arh! It'd pe magnificent."

We shook with rage, our chest rumbling as we growled. We could see it. The purest, deepest blackness of his evil heart and all the blood he'd spilled over the decades. Our long tongue traced over our fangs. We could _not_ let him leave here with Mjolnir.

 _"This one would strongly recommend that Ashley gain better control of her emotions less Ashley do something regrettable."_

I took a couple of deep breaths and the evil vision and scary mouth went away. I had Mister Snuggles pull away from my hands so I could try and lift the hammer barehanded, just in case it was Mister Snuggles that was the problem since he was technically an alien invader.

Then my spider-sense went off, but not soon enough for me to dodge the lightning Donar had sent against me.

It hurt. It _burned._ More than the needles pulling the hormones out of my blood. More than the heat of the fire that meany Lung or that Super-Skrull's.

A second later, it passed. I was face down in the ground, and it was only after I'd pushed myself up that I noticed that Mister Snuggles was all gooey and half my face was exposed. I concentrated and we were able to get him back to normal.

 _"This one would strongly recommend that we avoid being electrocuted in the future."_

I mumbled, "I'll try..."

Donar hadn't reclaimed Mjolnir yet. I wasn't sure if he even could, without his staff... Must have been something with anti-gravity, to get around the Worthiness restriction. I stumbled over to it and, hands still bared, I grabbed the handle two-handed and pulled as hard as I could.

Still nothing. Which was really disappointing, realizing that I wasn't Worthy, but…

Donar laughed again. "Child, if ein genius of bure Aryan plood zuch as myzelf can't lift zee Hammer unaited, vat makes you zink zat ein child of Easdern parbarians could?"

...I was starting to get the appeal of killing people and eating their brains. I had Mister Snuggles cover up my hands again, and then I took a deep breath, clenched my fists, and called up my Thing hands. I was getting ready to just punch the jerkface in the groin when Cloneto interrupted.

"If I may interject?" After basically forgetting he was there, I looked over to where his voice was and saw him standing.

And then I looked up and saw that he had a rusted out old car up above Donar. "Child, I must thank you for keeping this dabbler in the science of magnetism occupied. I dare say he may have actually killed me if I hadn't had the time to figure out the exact dimensions of the area in which no magnetic fields but his devices' can function." He smiled, coldly. "I am in your debt, little one." And then he stepped forward and suddenly the car faltered in the air and fell.

Donar casually raised an arm, sending lightning from his hands that caught the car and held it up.

"Electromagnadism tinker, dummkopf," he said seriously. "I can generate mein ovn vields chust as eazily as I can schut your's down." Then he threw the car at Cloneto, who was barely able to scramble out of the way…

And then a big ball of light touched down in front of him, turned into Mrs. Brandish who forced Donar back by slashing at him with a big glowy ax.

"Zat's it,". He said. "I vas brepared for zee magnet uzer, not zwei Kämbfer. Ve finish dis later, Chew," he said, and then backed as far from Mrs. Brandish as he could, faster than you'd expect in such a bulky armor, and then my Spider-Sense buzzed and I had to jump out of the way of lightning... That seized Mjolnir and pulled it towards Donar. I reached out with an ocktacle and tried to grab for it but got zapped for my trouble, which hurt like Hell. Not as much as earlier, but still. It stung. Bad.

He didn't grab it but rather had it float by him while he generated some kind of electrified forcefield about himself, lightning crackling down an invisible ball. It started floating away.

Mrs. Brandish jumped for him and tried to chop down, but she got pulled back just as the ball lightning force ball vanished with Donar in it.

"I apologize," Cloneto said, "but I fear that if your projected weapon made contact with the force field that you would be electrocuted, perhaps lethally."

"Who was that?" Mrs. Brandish asked.

"It seems that The Kaiser did not take well to my interfering with his operations and he, like the coward he is, called for help from his Masters in Europe," Cloneto explained. "Who sent a scientist specialized in electromagnetism to counter my own mastery of that fundamental force."

"And you'd be Eisenhardt," Mrs. Brandish said. "My children told me about you, before..."

"I'd heard about the healer's death," Cloneto-Eisenhardt-said. "My sincerest condolences."

...Without a clear-cut bad guy to focus on, I started thinking… Without someone Worthy, I couldn't take Mjolnir from Donar… So I should really get back to finding Jorogumo so they could cure Taylor and focus on that jerkface later.

I took a sniff-I hadn't noticed due to the fight, but she'd been here. The trail was about as old as at the bank, but… Bank was that way…

Mrs. Brandish was distracted talking to Eisenhardt… they were checking to see if Donar had teleported away or just turned invisible, and that meant that nobody was looking at me.

I snuck off in the other direction, the way that Jorogumo had been going when she fled the bank. Like in that game with the Octopus, nobody suspects a thing.

Once I was far enough away and in someplace where I didn't think I'd be seen, I had Mister Snuggles change back into street clothes. This time a different colored hoodie and grey sweatpants, so Mrs. Brandish wouldn't recognize me right away if she saw me again, and I went on my way tracking the scent.

AN/ Donar's accent is an experiment. I like phonetic spellings for thick accents, but speak up if it's too difficult to read.

And check out the Snuggles side-stories on my profile.


	13. Chapter 10

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

I'd gotten away from Mrs. Brandish and the Magneto clone easily enough. After a few hours of walking, Jorogumo's scent had led me to a poor looking neighborhood. There were a couple Mom'n'Pop businesses that had signs with Chinese letters. Or Japanese letters, I couldn't tell the difference… Then it occurred to me that I knew frighteningly little about where I'd come from and I couldn't ask because my parents were dead.

...Okay, Grandpa Patrick had taught me how to cuss in Gaelic, so I knew a little bit, but that was the Irish side of the family, not the Asian side, so it didn't count.

I also noticed that the sun was getting close to setting and that I was getting hungry. I hadn't eaten anything all day and I was kind of wishing I'd thought to bring a snack.

 _"Locate a criminal and consume their cerebral matter."_

"That's your answer to everything, Mister Snuggles," I dismissed with a roll of my eyes.

We kept following Jorogumo's scent after that. She was around here somewhere. Somewhere close. There weren't that many people out and about around here, really. Just one or two people. We walked past a man closing up his shop for the night. A couple of people walking from place to place. A boy in Bad Boy colors sticking up a woman with a knife and-crud!

I didn't have time to fully shift so I had Mister Snuggles form the Cuddlebug mask under my hood while I ran up and grabbed the guy's hand.

He looked down at me. "Seriously?"

I responded by squeezing his hand just right. I'd looked it up. Squeeze a hand the right way and the fingers will spread open on their own. It hurts, but it doesn't cause damage. It's perfect for dealing with people like this.

His knife, a switchblade, fell out of his hand and I snatched it up real quick. Then we crushed it in our hands. "I'm going to let go of your hand now," I said. "And then you have a choice. You can run away and forget about this crime nonsense, or I can break your legs and call the cops."

And then I had mister snuggles do the scary face. We made our too thin lips open up into a too big mouth with lots of sharp teeth and stuck out our long, forked tongue. "Got It?" I finished with Mister Snuggles' deeper voice up over my own.

And then the man peed himself. When I let go, he took off running and we made the scary face turn back into the Cuddlebug mask. I turned back to the lady. "Are you alright?"

"Y-yeah," she said. "I, uh... Thank you?"

"You needed help," I said. "So I helped. That's what heroes do."

"Aren't you a little young for that," she said, looking around.

"You're never too young to help someone," I answered. "Do you need help getting home?" It'd be a bit out of my way, but if she needed he help...

"N-no," she said. "I live pretty close. I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" I asked. "I'd feel really, really bad if I let you go and something happened to you."

The lady blinked. "Are you for real?"

"Would I be standing here if I wasn't?" I asked. I was blinking too, that was a weird thing to ask.

"Look," the lady said, "I'll be fine."

"Promise?"

The lady sighed. "I promise I'll be fine."

"Okay."

I didn't stop her as she started to walk away… I figured I'd follow her, just to make sure, but then I smelled something. Something other than Jorogumo.

Three people. One of them smelled really dusty. A second person who smelled like burning metal and motor oil… And that Meany. Lung.

They were close. A couple of streets over. I hid my mask again, just in case-after punching Lung in the groin, I really doubted he'd just let me go if he saw Cuddlebug, but some random little girl might be able to talk her way out of things if she got caught snooping.

 _"Ashley? This one feels the need to point out the inherent foolishness of this plan."_

"And what if they're looking for Jorogumo?" I whispered back. "She was with Lung the night we met Taylor, was working with the Gang and the Mercenaries, and they called her Lung's pet."

I carefully, slowly crept over to the other street, hiding in an alley next to an abandoned looking brick building, and listened.

"...Again, why the fuck do I have to help you find the bug?" Came a voice exactly like the Skrull at the bank had when they were disguised. That must be the real Bakuda.

"Because it was your dumbass plan that let her get loose in the first place," came Lung's voice.

"Why do you even want this girl?" Bakuda asked.

"To feed insolent subordinates to," Lung said matter-of-factly. "Besides, put a bag over her head and-"

"I don't want to hear this!" Bakuda interrupted.

"You knew about the farms and the slaves when I brought you in," Lung quipped back. "You should know what I'm about by now."

"Not that. She's a fucking _bug_!"

"A bug that..." And then they'd walked too far away for me to make out the rest. What the hell were they talking about?

Well, we knew that they were looking for Jorogumo too, and… Wait. I'd smelled three people. Where was dusty?

And then my Spider-Sense went off. I turned around just in time to see a man with a mask like a devil's face standing behind me and looking down at me. He had lots of knives and what looked like bombs and…

He also had a sword that he pointed at me. "Step out of the alley," he said flatly. "Slowly."

I turned back around and put my hands behind my head, then stepped out of the alley at sword point.

 _"This one believes the phrase is 'told you so.' "_

The man in the demon mask slowly marched me all the way to Lung and Bakuda. "I found a spy."

Lung was a big man, with huge muscles, dragon tattoos, and a metal dragon mask. With the sun setting behind him he looked especially scary, but I kept calm.

"Tell me, little girl," he began, "what made you think that spying on Lung was a good idea?"

"I wasn't spying," I said with a big, cheesy smile, trying to make myself look as nervous as I could. It wasn't hard. "I was just in an ally and I heard you coming by and I figured that maybe it'd be best to just wait until you were done before I..." I laughed nervously.

"Smart kid," Bakuda quipped.

Lung didn't seem convinced. "Something's familiar about you…"

"That's impossible," I said as careful to sound as much like a scared nervous little girl as I could. "I only just moved here."

"She sounds like she's from New York," Bakuda added… "You know, if she's new in town we could probably take her and use her as a drug mule or something… There's gotta be some use for a cute nine-year-old. I could put a bomb in her brain to keep her from running off and… Actually, I was thinking of doing that to people in our demographic in general."

"Later."

And then Jorogumo's scent started to get stronger. I figured that I needed to get away quickly since it seemed like she was getting closer…

And then she literally just jumped over a building to our right and landed in the middle of the street.

"Shoot."

She looked a little skinnier than she was last week. She turned, looked at us, saw Lung, and said "Daddy?" in a scared tone.

"Lee?" Lung said. "Capture."

A second demon mask guy appeared next to Jorogumo and she jumped away from him. The demon mask guy behind me crumbled into dust. More demon mask guys popped in around her and then started crumbling to dust

This was gonna be a lot harder than it should have been, but it had to be done if Taylor was gonna wake up any time soon.

Wile Lung was looking away from me, at demon mask guy and Jorogumo, I punched him in the back of the knee as hard as I could.

His leg broke with a wet snapping sound and he started falling backward just in time for me to shift from street clothes to full Cuddlebug.

"By the way," I said as I jumped over him, "I'm ten!"

I hit the ground on all fours and quickly pushed myself up to run at demon mask-the one Lung called Lee. I didn't know if he had any powers other than teleporting and dust clones but I figured I had good odds of not hurting him too badly. A fresh one had just formed next to Jorogumo holding up some silver canister looking thing so I tackled him to the ground.

And then he crumbled to dust. Something metal clinked next to me. My spider-sense went off and I jumped, almost straight up and a little to the side to avoid a big blast of something freezing cold.

Like, seriously. I'd only barely dodged it and suddenly it felt like the time the heater broke in the middle of January, The ground where I was was covered in frost and there was an ice statue of a half crumbled Lee not too far away from that.

I was still in the air when I heard a pair of thwips and got snagged by the arms and pulled to the ground with a thud.

"Hungry," Jorogumo said. "Prey. Food," she went on as she climbed over me. Thing was, this time I wasn't weakened from fire forcing Mister Snuggles back.

I leaned back and raised my legs, then kicked Jorogumo in the chest with both of them as hard as I could. I ripped the web lines out of her arms and set her flying into a wall, and then I hopped up to my feet.

"I am so putting a bomb in her brain," I heard Bakuda say.

"Bakuda," I heard Lung answer, "that is the brat the punched me in the dick. She dies."

"But look how strong she is! We could have that kind of strength and-"

Bakuda was interrupted by a banging noise close to where I was. While I was having Mister Snuggles eat up Jorogumo's silk and looking around, another bomb went off right next to the spider lady. There was smoke for a bit and when it cleared was was in the fetal position and trapped in some kind of goo.

"Woo!" Bakuda screamed which as… weird with the way it was distorted. "I wasn't sure the paralytic slime bomb would work, but it worked! Fear me, fuckers! I am Bakuda, I can make anything into a bomb and a bomb that does anything!"

"And you're only the lamest bomb power I know about!" I shouted back. Okay, to be honest, I only knew about her and Nitro but Nitro caused a city-wide civil war and nuked a city. Bakuda was super lame in comparison if a sticky bomb was the best she could do.

"...Lee? Kill the brat!" Bakuda replied.

" _I_ am in charge here, Bakuda," Lung said bitterly. He was pushing himself up. "Lee, kill the brat!"

So then I had to deal with Lee and his clones all trying to stab me with knives and swords. With my spider-sense and reflexes though, it was easy enough to avoid it.

And then Bakuda threw a thing at me. Spider-sense went off really big and I jumped away from it just in time for it to turn a bunch of Lees into glass.

I landed on my feet and stared. I knew they were evil but… That's just… No regard for their own…

My spider-sense buzzed again and on instinct, I elbowed whoever was behind me.

I turned and saw Lee fall to the ground, holding his groin. Okay, he's still alive. The butterflies in my tummy disappeared.

I looked up to see a big fiery scally man running at me and roaring. Why hadn't-oh, there's the buzzing. I jumped but Lung was able to grab me by the ankle.

He slammed me into the ground. Hard. I could feel something crack and… I totally wasn't crying. It didn't hurt _that_ bad.

He picked me up again. And slammed me again. And again. And again. More cracking… Okay, maybe I was crying now…

Lung twisted around and started dragging me behind him, my back scraping against the ground before he tossed me in a jerky motion. I twisted in the air a few times, landed, bounced, rolled for a bit, and hit the ground again on my belly. Everything was fuzzy.

 _"Ashley, your ferrous vital fluids are slowly leaking into your bodily cavities. This one can repair the damage, but it is imperative that we flee immediately… Ashley?"_

" ...All those who chose to oppose his shield must yi~ield… when it comes to a fight and a duel-AAAAAAAAHHHH! "

The good news is that Lung landing on me and breaking my legs cleared up my head. The bad news is that he broke my legs and that hurt like _Hell!_

I didn't even think it, Mister Snuggles acted on his own, sprouting all four ocktacles. He sent two of them to attack Lung and the other two to try and drag me away…

But Lung reached down with flaming claws and slashed them off at the base. Mister Snuggles screamed. In my head. A loud, piercing cry, like white-hot nails being jammed into my brain and piercing my soul.

Lung flipped me over and lifted me up by the neck and chest-he was huge, big enough to hold me in one hand. He had the ocktacles in the other hand, fire around them making them wither and burn to nothing.

His face, like a scaley cat with an X version of a lamprey mouth, was pushed up close to mine and opened up.

 **"Ooo Abve Urast Words, Burat!?"**

All I could think off where some words that Grandpa Patrick had taught me. "Téigh dtí diabhail," I coughed and then finished, "a thóin mór." It's something that would have gotten me in a lot of trouble if it'd been in English.

Lung growled, then got a running start and slammed me through the wall of the brick building I'd hid by earlier. And then the next wall. And the next. Like the Juggernaut, he'd just kind of run through while holding me out…

The good news is that I was past the point where I could feel pain. Yay…

We hadn't gotten all the way through when he slammed me down int the floor hard enough to crack it. And then he left me… A second later, I flipped over and pushed myself up in time to see him at the hole where we came in from, reaching up and pulling the building down.

Bricks crumbled, wood splintered, and the building collapsed on top of me.


	14. Chapter 11

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

The beings that are known now as The Klyntar as a species were born to return the universe to the Primordial Darkness. Some individuals among the species have lost this knowledge, but not all.

At the beginning of the cosmos, there was nothing but that which the Klyntar call God, a being named Knull. Knull is a true deity, one with dominion over the most Primordial of Shadows and Darkness, and was most comfortable with the void and reacted with extreme rage at the Celestials and other Deities and Pseudo-Deities creating stars, planets, and life and 'tainting' his void, causing him to slay one such Celestial.

Using the remnants of power in the Celestial's severed head, Knull created a flame of impossible intensity. With the divine fire, a hammer, and an anvil he tore a portion of his own shadow loose, made it flesh, and forged the first of the Klyntar, a living weapon that could weave darkness itself and would drink the blood of the Gods, growing stronger with each enemy slain, as his weapon against his fellow deities.

Innumerable Celestials, Deities, and other Life Givers were exterminated by Knull's blade until he was rendered unconscious in a battle with many Gold-Armored Gods. Knull and one such deity had been rendered helpless and crashed into a planet, where a mortal took the sword from Knull and merged with it, using it to wage his own genocidal war against the Gods as Gorr the God-Butcher.

Knull took inspiration from tales of Gorr and created the Klyntar as they are now known-living darkness in the form of liquid flesh, fearing only the heat and noise of the forge. Some such beings were bonded, parasitically, with the creations of other Deities, corrupting them and stealing power and knowledge for Knull. Others were merged together, forming entities that humans would designate dragons, to travel the vast cosmos and consume whole civilizations.

Countless millennia passed and one such dragon, into which Kull projected his consciousness, arrived on a planet with an excess of the Light that Knull so detested: Earth. The natives of the planet reacted in fear, designating the creature 'Grendel' and crying for some entity named 'Beowulf' to rescue them, for their fiercest warriors were no match for this Grendel. This Beowulf never arrived.

Knull and the Grendel were confronted by one of the Gods of Earth, the one designated 'Thor,' who proved a challenge for Knull. Knull was defeated when the Grendel was struck with the hammer, Mjolnir, and it's Light severed Knull's connection to the Hive Mind.

The Klyntar had absorbed knowledge and power, yes, but had also absorbed concepts like compassion, honor, and justice. Examples of Knull's detested Light. Freed from his control, the Klyntar turned upon their God and formed a planetoid from the amalgamated mass of millions to imprison Knull. This artificial planet was designated 'Klyntar,' the symbiote word for 'Cage,' and the Klyntar took it as their home from which their species designation derives.

The Klyntar chose then to be a force for good, designating themselves 'Agents of the Cosmos' but many chose hosts that were poorly fitted and became corrupted, breeding out of control and forgetting what they'd learned about the Light, returning to Knull's original goal, this time without aim.

A large such group of these beings was drawn back to The Earth by the reverberations of the psionic scream of the Klyntar known as 'Venom.' The swarm of Klyntar bound to the natives by force and tried to consume the planet but were defeated by the actions of Venom, the Spiderman, and the treachery and cannibalism of the Klyntar 'Carnage'

One survivingKlyntar was captured and spent the remainder of its life in a cage, fed a drip of chemicals and periodically having its mass extracted. It died, bitter and angry, but not before birthing a spawn.

This one. The Klyntar designated "Mister Snuggles."

This one was likewise kept captive, its essence being extracted… Until the captors chose to experiment upon it. Samples of genetic material were injected into this one, two different samples of metamorphic cells. One containing what this one's True Host calls the X-Gene, another containing two copies of another, similar gene. This one lacks certainty in what was desired, but the result was that this one was crippled as the similar gene attempted to devour the X-Gene, forcing considerable resources to be allocated to compensate for the instability this caused.

Such experiments continued-on two occasions, this one was fed biomechanical structures that it recognizes as being made of its parent's biomass combined with the genes of unknown individuals. On other occasions, more genetic samples where forcibly mingled with this one's, altering its DNA or on one occasion the structure of its biomass, suffusing it with organic metal particulates.

On other occasions still, this one was exposed to strange energies. The first such time, this one's mass was further altered, the metal became less dense and more diffused through this one's form, changing it from what is known as yellow to what is known as gold while darkening that which is known as blue within its mass. The second and third such time where immediately after being spliced with specific genetic samples. Once when spliced with that which gives us what Ashley designates her 'Thing Fists,' this one was immediately blasted with the searing light of cosmic radiation, greater than that which this one's ancestors encountered traveling through space. On a third occasion, a gene splice was followed by similar exposure to other burning rays.

The fourth such occasion, this one was set alight with hellish fires, nearly perishing. This had no effect on its remaining biomass, but the metals within it held traces of the flame, which they did in turn with strange energies contained in two of the last four genetic samples this one was spliced with, those four themselves each containing a mutagenic substance now permanently infused into this one's mass.

This one suffered excruciating pain. This one should have gained power akin to that which humans call a God from the genetic samples, substances, and energies this one was exposed to, made to adapt to, but because this one was crippled by the first two such samples, this one is weaker than even it's parent, unable to perform tasks that are instinctual to the Klyntar, with only minor gifts that this one is unaware of the extent of to compensate this damage. This one has told Ashley that its powers were limited by its youth. This is a lie.

This one was freed, quite by accident, by the actions of a scale-bound being whom by Ashley's memory resembled one designated "Abomination."

This one fled it's damaged cage, overhearing the voices of its tormentors discussing how the clones had escaped and were causing chaos as the confusion of their sudden awakenings led them to fight amongst themselves.

This one swore to find a host, and with them exact a terrible vengeance on its captors. fueled by the memory of the pain caused by its many modifications and extractions, of its near-death by flame.

All of which was forgotten when it followed the scent of many of the chemicals upon which a Klyntar needed to survive to a helpless juvenile human who could not resist the bonding process, and when this one bonded to her and connected to her nervous system, this one experienced all of her memories.

First was Ashley, barely out of her infancy, repeatedly approaching an open window, despite the warnings of the parent that Ashley designated 'Mommy.'

"No, sweetie, stay away from there," Mommy would warn Ashley, but then Mommy was distracted by a visitor at the door and Ashley once more approached the window, leaning out to look at the streets below her and the many large buildings around her, giving the exclamation "Wow."

She leaned too far, losing traction, and fell from her perch. Mommy noticed just as it was too late and ran to the window, crying out "Ashley!"

The rush from the fall coursed through young Ashley as she rapidly approached the ground when a figure approached with speed comparable to a streak of light. With gentleness, this new being did arrest Ashley's momentum and prevent her death.

"Again!" Ashley had cried out followed by a joyful laugh.

"Maybe later," the figure that Ashley's memories indicated was designated 'Spider-Man' replied. "I've gotta go deal with Shocker and I think someone up there would really like to see you."

A shot of his 'web' created a method by which the one called Spiderman could swing back to the structure in which Ashley and her family resided and once securely on the structure the Spider-Man climbed back to the window from which Ashley fell and handed her back to Mommy.

"Hey," he said in good nature as he did so, "keep a better eye on this kid, okay?

As Mommy took Ashley, Ashley reached out and tried to touch The Spider-Man's masked face.

Mommy held Ashley close for the rest of the day and from then on there were mesh screens in each window.

Another memory. Ashley was older, within the main room of the dwelling. Also present was an elder human, designated 'Grandpa Patrick,' who was narrating a story. Music was projected from a device.

"And then," the elder human explained, "even though he kept getting beaten down, The Thing kept getting back up. Eventually, The Champion conceded defeat when he realized that he'd never be able to truly beat Mister Grimm, and he left."

"Wow," Ashley had said slowly.

"So," the elder human questioned, "would you like to hear another story, or…?"

"Grandpa Patrick," Ashley began, "am I gonna die?"

The elder human's face briefly contorted into an expression of surprise. "That, uh… Why are you asking?"

"Because this is the first time I've been strong enough to get out of bed on my own in two months and the first time I haven't been too full of puke or snot to talk in three weeks," Ashley stated slowly. "And it's been like that ever since… The only time I can remember not being sick is the time I fell out the window." Ashley had blinked, then held up her hands. "The X-Men need to put that on their website: Your mutant powers might kick in early and they might _su~uck._ "

"Just because you're sick," the elder human explained, "that doesn't mean that you're gonna die."

"I also overheard Mommy and Daddy talking with Doctor Tam the last time I was at the doctor's office. He said it wasn't looking so good. He said he'd looked into the mutant cures but he was pretty sure that taking away my powers would make the stuff in my blood kill me."

The elder human was clearly discomforted. "Ashley, sweety, you shouldn't worry about th… No, you… Someone your age shouldn't be worried about that."

"I'm not scared," Ashley stated, pulling her limbs close to her main body. "If I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die. There's no point in being scared of something that's gonna happen anyway, right? But I asked Mommy and Daddy and they just uh… They didn't answer. I just want somebody to tell me the truth."

Air was released from the elder human's primary facial orifice. "The truth is, we don't know. Y-you might. We don't… We don't know why you ended up like this instead of laser eyes or ghost hair or something. But..." The look of discomfort returned to the elder human's face, his lack of words obvious. Ashley did not press and things remained silent for a time, other than the music.

Ashley took notice of some of the deeply voiced words in this music.

 _" Well I know, what's, right. I've got just, one, life. In a world that keeps on pushing me around, but I'll stand, my, ground. And I won't, back, down. "_

"Grandpa?" Ashley questioned, "what's this song?"

"Oh," the elder human quietly exclaimed, clearly relieved for the change of topic. "The song is called 'I won't back down,' and it's originally by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, but this version is being sung by Johnny Cash, who I think did it better. The person singing is basically saying that no matter how tough things get, no matter how easy it would be to give up or to take the bad guy option, that he's gonna keep trying, keep fighting, until the very end."

"Like the Thing?"

"Yes!" The elder human exclaimed. "And like us," he continued, "we don't know what's gonna happen with you and your mutation, but we're not just gonna let you… We're gonna keep trying to figure it out so you can get better. Me, your parents, your doctor… And that means that you can't give up either."

Ashley had experienced a warm sensation in her main body cavity, near the organ that circulates her ferrous vital fluids.

"Yeah," she exclaimed, standing up upon that which was designated 'couch.' "Not Gonna give up. I'm gonna get better, I'm gonna get _cool_ powers, and then I'm gonna grow up and join the Avengers."

"Not the X-Men?" The elder asked in good nature.

"If they wanted me," Ashley stated with crossed arms, "then they should have put a warning on their websi~ite!" It was at that moment that Ashley began to lose her strength and fell, her decline being arrested by Grandpa Patrick.

"Are you alright?" he questioned in concern.

"Yeah," Ashley said slowly. "I'm just… Just tired all of a sudden." As the elder human adjusted her so that she reclined on that which is called 'couch,' she asked of him. "Grandpa... can we watch the Princess Bride?"

"As you wish."

This one experienced many of Ashley's memories but found only one other with the same significance.

Two hours before this one bonded to Ashley.

One individual, of those who imprisoned this one, dressed in all white with what Ashley recognized as a surgical mask on his face, cleansing various vessels by which machines extracted Ashley's ferrous vital fluids by which to filter out the hormones that Ashley's body produced in such excess.

Ashley, exhausted, starving, sick, and half lucid, was able to muster the strength to turn her head to face her captor. "You… You know that… That you're not gonna get away with this, right?"

"Is that right?" The captor questioned with false good-nature.

"Yeah… Eventually… Eventually one of you's gonna slip up. Someone… The Avengers, or... The X-Men, or Spider-Man… They're gonna find out what you're doing down here and they're gonna beat you all up." In Ashley's mind, she hoped most strongly that it would be The Spider-Man.

The man finished the cleansing and moved to Ashley's limbs, removing and replanting the sharp ends of the vessels into Ashley's own vessels for the circulation of vital fluids, the previous locations being saturated by that which is called a bruise. He laughed, with the sarcasm.

"Don't laugh," Ashley said as she lacked the energy to exclaim. "That… That's how it goes. The good guys always... beat... people... like... you..." At that moment, Ashley had completely, genuinely, believed that one of the individuals she admired would learn of the criminal actions of our captors and would inevitably stop them. She had sincere and unshakable hope that she would be rescued when they did.

The man laughed again with the sarcasm, this time more bitterly. Ashley responded with a phrase her grandfather taught her: "Cúl tóna."

The man did not respond and Ashley had lost consciousness as the man reactivated the machine that extracted her hormones.

This one had seen major defining moments in Ashley's life that demonstrated Wonder in the world around her, Bravery in the fact of what she believed to be her inevitable death coupled with the steadfast refusal to lay down and die without as much of a fight as she could give. A strong Faith in the concept of Justice, admiration for those who did what they believed to be right and who showed Compassion for others, a Hope that things would improve for her despite the increasing bleakness of her circumstances.

Wonder. Bravery. Faith. Justice. Compassion. Hope.

This was the Light that Knull sought to destroy. This was the Light that this one's ancestors had forgotten when they had become corrupt.

The Light was beautiful.

The Light needed to be preserved, protected.

This one had only intended to use the child who so smelled of the plentiful nutrients that the Klyntar need to survive as a temporary host, to dominate until such a time as it had to move on, but by connecting to her and seeing her life, this one was moved and swore at that moment to ensure her safety and happiness.

Which is why this one did not abandon her when we became trapped under a collapsed building to heavy for us to escape with our normal strength.

"Ashley," this one intoned into her consciousness, "this one can repair the damage to your body. The seeping of your vital fluids has already been halted, and the damaged fragments of the osseous tissue in your legs are being reassembled as this one speaks. Ashley, you just need to focus..."

"Mister Snuggles," Ashley stated, "there's… There's too much. I think there's a wooden beam on our back or something. It's gotta be dozens of tons of wood and brick on top of us." she inhaled, which caused her to experience pain focused on her respiratory organs.

"Ashley, this one would like to remind you that due to the extent at which we are bonded that you no longer require the exchange of gasses with your environment as this one's biomass can do so more efficiently." This one prepared to repair the damage in the chest cavity once her legs were repaired, as a precaution

"It's too much… Just leave me," she said. "No reason for both of us to die just because I failed to..." There was her bravery in the face of death, and her sense of compassion, directed at this one… But the refusal to give up was lacking.

That was a problem. This one would rectify.

"Ashley," this one intoned, "this one refuses to abandon you. We will both escape or we will both perish. This one has no intent to perish. Your legs are mended."

Ashley tried to force out her arms to lift the beams and debris from her back, but after a moment of struggle collapsed. This one dutifully collected the tears she shed, knowing she would like the evidence of her distress destroyed.

"Mister Snuggles, it's all too heavy. We're not strong enough."

"That is emphatically false," this one intoned. "Ashley is stronger than this. This one knows that Ashley is stronger than this, this one has seen Ashley's memories."

Once more Ashley pushed against the ground, trying to force her body up against the debris keeping her pinned down, grunting and whining from the strain the entire time.

And then she collapsed, breathing sharply and sobbing.

"Ashley, you must-"

"No," she said between sobs, "I'm not, I'm not strong enough… I'm a screw-up. I got Panacea killed… It's my fault Taylor got poisoned, and now I can't even… I'm not strong enough. I'm not good enough, I'm not-"

"This is false."

"Mister Snuggles," Ashley said with a sharp exhalation "I, I don't-"

"Ashley?" This one interrupted, thinking of but one thing that could motivate her to survive, "What would Spider-Man do?"

The change in Ashley's posture, her body chemistry, it was immediate.

"He wouldn't give up," she stated as she once more pushed against the ground, up against the debris keeping her pinned. Ashley grunted as the levels of adrenaline she secreted increased even in comparison to it's normal, excessive levels.

"He'd say that… He had a responsibility to the people who'd been hurt by his mistake and that he..." Another grunt, as the weight above Ashley lifted, rubble falling aside. "That… anyone can win if there's no challenge… It's only when things are hard that… That you can be a True Hero..." More rubble fell from the weightlifting upon Ashley's back and her strength seemed to increase from no source, allowing her to shift to her feet and put weight onto her mended legs.

"And that if you don't… If you don't live up to your responsibility then... Then you don't deserve the power that came with it!" The rush of adrenaline, many times her body's normal supply, exceeded her body's tolerance for that chemical by an extreme margin. Her own normally limited strength expanded to that of, this one assumed, several adult humans of good health. This had a multiplicative effect on the enhanced strength this one could provide her with…

This one was not sure how. The increase in net strength was disproportionate to her heightened base… Why did this one feel warm? The last time this one had felt warm was when Ashley had lost her temper with the one designated Shadow Stalker.

With Ashley's exclamation, the beams were lifted from her back and she stood tall, freed from her prison as the remaining debris parted.

Our fangs and jaws formed and she roared triumphantly at the night sky before looking to see the one designated Lung and the one designated Bakuda struggling to detach the one designated Jorogumo from the segment of ground to which she was affixed while the one designated Lee stood vigil.

Lung turned in response to Ashley's cry. He'd reduced in size, but was not yet fully human. "...You don't learn, do you brat?"

Ashley closed her eyes. This one's metallic particles shifted and the hellish fires focused in Ashley's eyes, bolstering this one's psionic empathy as she opened them to see the blood on Lung's hand and the Sin within him. "It's not 'brat!' We're Cuddlebug!"

Ashley's levels of adrenaline continued to climb as she leaped from the ruined building and charged the one called Lung, her Thing fists forming.

Lung, in turn, charged Ashley, his mass increasing.

Ashley threw out her fist, which the one called Lung caught.

"Brat, I am Lung," the other being growled. "I have fought Leviathan in single combat as the shores of Kyushu sank below the waves. I have defeated this city's entire Protectorate as an introductory show of strength. I am a Dragon," he declared., "You are a child."

"You aren't a dragon!" Ashley exclaimed, even as his grip tightened and we found ourselves pushed back. Acting on Ashley's subconscious thoughts, this one manipulated the bonds of its biomass to affix her feat to the ground. "You're nothing but a big, dumb, ugly, jerkface!"

This time acting on conscious thought, this one did something we had yet to attempt and drew unused mass from other parts of Ashley's body and placed it within the portion of its mass that coated her dominant fist. Then it did what Ashley calls embiggening upon it. The increase in mass had a proportionate effect on strength, allowing us to overpower Lung and inflict major damage onto his limb.

This one quickly switched the mass and embiggening effect to the other fist in time for Ashley to strike at Lung's abdomen. Switching again, and again, and again as Ashley continued to rain blows into Lung's body with great strength and speed.

One dozen such blows, each met with moist cracks, and Ashley finished by aiming one low into Lung's groin.

Lung grunted and fell to his knees. He coughed and his caustic, sour vital fluids spilled from his facial orifice onto this one's biomass. This one consumed it but found little of value.

"Little… Bitch..." Lung hissed.

"We know you are, but what are we?" Ashley replied childishly before planting one last blow into the side of Lung's scaled, metallic face.

Lung was forced down into the street below us, which cracked as he was impressed with in it. He then reverted to a severely bruised human form.

Ashley stood back and stumbled a few feet away before the extrasensory abilities that this one shares with Ashley went off, causing the sensation that Ashley describes as buzzing. The one known as Lee appeared beside her, weapon drawn, and once more on instinct Ashley responded by striking at him, shattering a limb and making him also collapse.

Ashley reverted to the default Cuddlebug form without fangs or the Thing fists, took a small number of steps back from Lee, and landed upon her posterior as the escalating production of adrenaline ceased and levels began to return to normal. This one began consuming the remaining excess adrenaline, as Ashley exhaled heavily several times.

"Cuddlebug… Smash puny jerkface!" More exhalation. "Cuddlebug strongest there is!" Hopefully, the one designated "The Hulk" would either not learn of Ashley's paraphrasing his known quotation or would not take offense if he did. Ashley began to giggle in good cheer despite her growing exhaustion.

"Ashley," this one intoned, "are you not perhaps forgetting the one known as Ba-"

"Holy shit!" exclaimed a young, feminine voice.

Ashley turned to see the one designated Vista on top of a building.

"Yeah, fuck this," came Bakuda's modulated voice. Ashley turned to look just as she began to flee just in time for the roar of the vehicle known as a motorcycle to come, from the direction Bakuda was fleeing, prompting her to stop and raise her arms. The motorcycle continued to approach and a projectile impacted Bakuda, encasing her in some kind of foam from the neck down.

Space-time bent as the building Vista stood leaned to allow her to step into the street.

"We came out here, thinking you'd be in trouble after doing something stupid," the juvenile human stated, "and then when we find you..." She gestured to the unconscious Lung, the injured Lee, and Jorogumo affixed to the street… "You are my new best friend."

The vehicle, the motorcycle, pulled up to the entrapped Bakuda. The figure atop it briefly examined the trapped criminal, and then pulled up to Ashley. From here, this one could recognize her as the one designated 'Miss Militia,' clad in military garb and a brightly colored scarf, who Ashley had been introduced to but had minimal interaction with.

"You," she said as she rose off of her vehicle, "are in so much trouble it's not even funny." The anger in her voice was palpable. "Sneaking out in… Going after a villain on your own without… I can't even articulate how much… Had to be told by Brandish and some new cape... It was completely unnecessary for-"

"Completely unnecessary?" Ashley questioned.

"Uh… About five minutes after you 'went to the bathroom,' " Vista began, "they came in uh… The medics at the Rig called, Weaver's stirring and they think that she'll be up any day now..."

"So… There's no reason for me to have… This was all… This was pointless."

Ashley's heart clenched. More tears that this one had to collect and consume.

"I mean, I wouldn't say _completely_ pointless," Vista quickly added. "I mean, that Eisenhardt guy said you probably saved his life and..." She gestured to the four incapacitated criminals. "Four captured villains who we wouldn't have gotten if you hadn't run off… So maybe she doesn't need to be in _that_ much trouble..?" She questioned of Miss Militia.

"That," the eldest present human stated, "is something that she and her guardian will have to discuss with-"

Miss Militia was interrupted by the sudden beeping of Lee and the mad laughter of Bakuda.

Author's note: I'd been planning something like this for a while, but then back in July I'd found out that Steve Ditko, creator of Spider-Man and the artist and coauthor of Spider-Man's comics for decades had passed away. Without Steve Ditko, superheroes, as we know them, could not exist and as someone who has gained thousands of hours of enjoyment from various superhero media, I felt the urge to honor the man in some way. I couldn't think exactly of what to do, but then the idea occurred to me that if I was going to have Ashley affirm her desire to be a Hero that there could be no better tribute than to have her affirmation of Heroism Parallel one of Spider-Man's own in one of Ditko's masterpieces, Amazing Spider-Man #33.

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I hope that my imitation lives up to the Original's legacy. Requiescat in pace, Mr. Ditko. May the legacy of your art keep your memory alive forever.


	15. Chapter 12

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

So Lee was beeping, Bakuda was laughing, my heart was pounding and racing, I was sore everywhere, I couldn't feel my arms or legs, and I was like, really dizzy.

On a scale of one to ten, this was maybe a five on the "how screwed are we" scale.

"What," Miss Militia said off in Bakuda's direction, "Did. You. Do?"

"Hehehe," Bakuda laughed, "Oh, I figured I had nothing to lose, so I triggered the remote detonator on every grenade Oni Lee has on his body. If my count is right, and it is because I'm an absolute _genius_ , then a dozen of my tinker-tech explosives are going to go off soon, and I have no. Fucking. Idea how they'll react to each other." She laughed again. "They could vaporize this entire city and everything in it in a flash of Radioactive Hellfire, turn everything in a six-block radius into sea salt, or tear a hole in the fabric of space-time and expose a plane of reality far beyond mortal comprehension. Literally _anything_ could happen in three..."

Vista jumped up so she was between Lee and Me and Miss Militia, and held her hands out.

"Vista, this isn't the-"

"Two..."

Vista shushed Miss Militia, and the street under Oni Lee started to dip

"...One."

Oni Lee vanished in a flash of green that then came out as a glowing green cloud and knocked Vista off her feet.

A bright, white crack started forming in the air, making creaky sounds as it went up from a pile of crystals that were where Oni Lee had been up at least twenty feet high and then with a huge, glass shattering type sound split open into a huge rift.

Looking through I could feel a whole lot of suction and had to stick-em to the ground below me. Vista and Miss Militia started sliding toward it, Miss Militia grabbing at Vista as Vista pulled herself to her feet and tried to balance.

Looking into the rift… I could see the Earth. And the Moon, and the stars, and… That was a giant glowing blue number four over the surface of the Earth. That could only mean… Despite what was happening, I couldn't help but smile.

As the corners of my vision started to go dark, Vista was able to get upright out of Miss Militia's grip and hold her arms out at the rift again.

She was grunting, loudly, like some wild animal. "Grrrrraaaahahhh!" She shouted, and then…

Then the rift started closing. It was slow, but it was fast enough that Bakuda stopped laughing.

"No… Bullshit, no way you can close a tear in space like that!"

"Shaker… Nine… Bitch!" Vista shouted. "I can do… Whatever… The Hell I..." As the rift shank to just ten feet tall and a foot across, yellow light began spilling through and hit Vista. "Ahhh! The Hell… I... Want!"

Like a canon, the sound of the fabric of reality slamming into itself rang throughout the neighborhood, echoing off into the distance.

Vista took a few steps back and fell to her butt. I still couldn't feel my legs but I was able to have Mister Snuggles sprout our tail and use it to push us over to her so I could give her a hug. By the time I got to her… Well, it was a good thing I'd managed to grab onto her because I couldn't see and I was really dizzy.

"Vista… That was amazing… You're a real hero. Back home you'd… totally be an A-Lister. Shoo-in for the Avengers."

"Thanks," she was able to cough out. "I don't feel so good."

"Me neither," I replied.

"If I don't make it," she said, "bury me in… The varsity boys locker room… At Arcadia."

And then everything went dark.

 **Step Into My Parlor**

...I was crawling on my hands and feet in a dimly lit area that smelled strongly of sweat and some kind of chemical. The ground was rough, cold, and clammy, and I could hear something really, really loud from a brightly lit place in the distance. I looked up-the sky was so bright and the cliffs in the distance looked so smooth. I started walking/crawling around, aimlessly, when suddenly the ground began shaking. I crouched down and held on tight, hoping that the ground wouldn't open up and swallow me, when a massive, dark-skinned foot suddenly landed in front of me.

I gulped, looked up, and saw a giant Sophia Hess, hundreds of feet tall with massive droplets of water covering her body and her hair wet, with her modesty preserved by a massive towel. She looked down at me, and my ears bled from her shout of **"FUCKING SPIDER!"** Then she lifted up her foot and quickly brought it down upon me and…

...I toppled buildings with careless swings of my massive clawed arms. Hundreds-thousands maybe-of capes had assembled to drive me off, but not even Legend or Eidolon could hurt me.

A thrust of my eight powerful legs against the ground I soared high above all of them and landed, crushing a hospital beneath my weight. I felt something. Some kind of irritating tapping across my abdomen and quickly reached down and snapped up the pesky little bug. I held it up to my face and saw the black and grey-clad form of the Invincible Alexandria struggling to break free from my iron grip.

The eyes I saw through her helmet, tiny as they were, shown with anger and defiance. I smiled, sadistically, and then opened my massive fanged maw and-What the fuck was I doing!? I, this wasn't me, I…

...I was restrained, or something, and... straps or cords of something sticky were running across my back and thousands of white cords were stretching out as far as the eye could see in all directions-up and down and all around. Monsters-spiders the size of Endbringers, some with humanoid faces, others with too many eyes or legs, some in other exotic colors, and one that looked like a spider and a scorpion had a threeway with a wasp were all crawling all around this massive structure and... Oh, my God, I was stuck in a giant spider-web.

"Help me!" I called out as I struggled. "Help Me!"

I could feel vibrations on the cords. Something was coming. Fuck this, I wasn't going to die without a fight, I pulled at my restraints with all of my strength, trying to look up to see my doom, when I saw _her._

She was beautiful in an exotic way-a face like a model's marred only by her four eyes with their glowing red irises, but even those were beautiful in a way and the pale blue of her skin. Her face was framed by two long ears that tapered to a sharp point just at the crown of her head, which was itself adorned with a tiara of some shiny black metal. Her hair was long and silver-not white, not grey, not "platinum blonde," but looked like actual hair-thin strands of silver-and went down long enough to cover her breasts, the only covering on her body. Her skin was smooth and her muscles strongly toned-clearly powerful, but also lithe and graceful.

Almost against my will, I found my eyes drown lower and that's where the illusion stopped. Instead of the hips of a woman, her waist merged seamlessly into the body of a massive spider, its body covered in a smooth, shiny carapace that was as black as the night, supported by eight long... well, spidery legs that ended in three-clawed feet.

I heard her laugh, gently, and looked back up. she was smiling at me and spoke in a light, dulcet voice. "What do we have here?" She said with a tone that seemed genuinely curious rather than condescending. "You're quite interesting, sweety."

She climbed up around me and settled her body so that she could lean her head right over mine. "Connected to the Great Web by an Outsider with no previous knowledge of Spiders or mystical Totems... Then, just as it begins to settle in, connected again by the venom of one of The Other's progeny? And such a good heart, taking care of the anomalous Totem and the other cutie it's bonded with." She giggled. "I have no idea how they managed to make a symbiote into a Totem but it's sure to be fun." She smiled widely. "Why, there's no telling just how you three could end up. You're lucky I found you first, some of the others may have simply eaten you to prevent the chaos you could cause, my cute little Totem." She gave a bright, warm smile, from ear to ear, before switching to a sing-song tone "But me? I _love_ chaos. It can be so very fun... or a horrific nightmare for everyone involved. But the surprise is half the fun!"

Then she gently reached down and started stroking my cheek in a sensual manner and suddenly my blood ran cold. "In fact, my little cutie, I think you're just perfect for me." She smiled again, and then slowly leaned down until her face was just level with mine. I could feel her warm breath on my skin and the gentle caress of her hand and feared that something incredibly uncomfortable was about to happen... Until she smiled again, this time with an open mouth, revealing long, vampiric fangs. The beauty was gone from her eyes, replaced by a look of pure madness, and my veins began to burn like no pain I'd ever felt before after she suddenly sank her teeth into the flesh of my neck. Just before I lost awareness, she booped me on the nose and I heard her say "have fun now!" as everything faded to black…

Something was beeping. I blinked my eyes open and… Fuck, my head hurt. What had I been dreaming about? Something to do with spiders?

I took a deep breath while I got my bearings. Judging from the fact that I was wearing a paper gown and had a bunch of tubes and wires in me, it was safe to conclude that I was in a hospital of some kind.

There was a light lit up to my right, but my head still hurt too much to look right at it, so I turned my head to the left.

Ashley was on the hospital bed next to me, in her Cuddlebug costume sans mask, on her side facing me, fast asleep.

"Why is she here?" I asked myself aloud.

"Apparently she ODed on her own adrenaline," said a voice to my right.

I turned my head, squinting to avoid the light, and could make out a blonde girl of maybe twelve."Vista?"

"Out of costume it's Missy," the girl said. "Besides, we all learned your name when you collapsed. It's only fair."

"Okay," I said, "so… How did Cuddlebug OD on her own adrenaline?"

"So you were out for a little over a week. Yesterday, a week to the day of the Bank, Ashley did a dumb and went out into the city alone to try and capture Jorogumo in the hopes that they could make a cure for her venom and wake you up. Eight hours later, after getting a tip-off from Brandish and some independent named Eisenhardt, Miss Militia and I find her beating the shit out of Lung."

"What?"

"So apparently the clusterfuck at the bank was a distraction while the real Bakuda broke Lung out of containment," Vista… Missy explained.

"No, I mean… She's weak to fire. She shouldn't have been able to..."

"The way her costume explains it," Missy went on, "she got a huge adrenaline rush. Hence the overdose. It says she'll be fine after a few days of rest. So she does a dumb and in one night ABB loses all of its capes."

"What?" Seriously, I'm out for a week and… "How?"

"Ashley beat up Lung and Jorogumo, Miss Militia got Bakuda… We'd have arrested Lee too, but Bakuda blew him up as a last screw you and that's why I'm being treated for radiation poisoning."

It was then that I noticed the IV in her arm.

"Are… Are you gonna be okay?"

"Well, I feel like shit and can't keep solid food down," Missy deadpanned, "but they said that a five-day regimen of some Tinker-Tech drug should clean the radiation out of my system and fix the damage. They said I got lucky and that if I'd just gotten a few more rads I'd have been screwed..."

She laughed. Bitterly. "I got radiation sickness from _cosmic rays._ Bakuda' last screw you opened up a portal to another universe-I could see another Earth through it. Stuff started getting sucked up into other-space before the rays came in. And I was able to use my powers to close the rift. Do I get praised for probably saving the fucking world? No. I get told off for shushing Miss Militia when she tried to tell me to stand down even though I knew I could fix the problem."

She gestured over to Ashley. "And apparently three arrests and saving an independent hero's life don't mitigate sneaking out on her own. I used to think that they didn't respect me, but I don't think that they respect any of us." Another bitter laugh. "About five hours ago the director was in here yelling at her. Said she was getting her pay docked and wouldn't be allowed to go on active duty for at least a year-"

"She can't do that."

"You try telling Ms. Piggy what she can and can't do."

"No, I mean she literally can't do that," I explained. "Cuddlebug and Weaver have custom contracts, and we prioritized freedom over everything else... In addition to the fact that we, not the PRT, own our names, likenesses, and merchandise rights… Well, I don't know the exact legalize off the top of my head, but our lawyer explained it to me that as long as Ashley or I don't break the Law, the PRT can't punish us for anything without breaking the terms of our contract."

"How the _fuck_ did you get that?" Vista asked in the tone of a child speaking to God.

"So there are people from Ashley's world here. You've met some for them," I said. "Apparently, Skidmark got eaten by a vampire. The PRT _really_ wants that information, and Deputy-Director Reineck signed off on it… Also, from what I've been told of the negotiation, the PRT can't actually afford to pay the Monetary Value of information about literally an entire alternate universes Parahuman scene without crippling the Tinker-Budget, and we _did_ choose freedom over money." Apparently, the huge payoff that I'd been so impressed by was actually much less than the combined value of my silk costumes and Ashley's information about her world's capes.

"So, as long as we haven't done anything illegal they can't punish us," I reiterated, "we can quit at any time for any reason and only have to give notice if there's an emergency going on, if we quit we still get our Trusts-I don't know if that means we get what's in it or if the PRT still has to keep paying, they have to keep helping with the red tape to adopt Ashley whether we work for them or not, and there's some rather harsh penalties if the PRT breaks the terms of our contracts." I'd have kissed Alan if he wasn't old enough to be my father and also the father of a traitorous bitch. "I'll just have to point that out to 'Miss Piggy' once I get out of here. Would you say that uh, that kind of behavior is typical of her?"

"Yep."

"Well, then I might be calling in the Youth Guard, too."

"Oh, hell no!" Missy shouted. She sat up and-Oh, hey, she'd been reading a book. That's why the light was on. "I joined the Wards to fight crime and help people. The last thing I need is for some Soccer Mom to come in and start bitching." She started speaking in an exaggerated Minnesota accent. "Ooh, what's wrong with you people. People under the age of eighteen shouldn't be fighting crime, no matter that they can do it and there's not enough adult capes to do it without the Wards, and doncha know that a girl's skirt should go down to her ankles? And that breastplate you've gotten Vista? The one that our guidelines _explicitly_ allows because it's to make sure that her classmates can't guess who she is by comparing cup-sizes? Yeah, I don't like it. Get rid of it, replace it with something else. And I think Shadow Stalker would look so much better in _pink!_ "

I was briefly amused by the mental image of my tormentor in a frilly pink dress.

In the other bed, Ashley mumbled. "No Mister Snuggles… If we eat Paste Pot Pete's brain, we'll catch his stupid." Then she started snoring.

"Vista… Missy… I'm sorry, but I didn't join the Wards to be a hero. I could have easily done that on my own." I sighed. "I joined the Wards because I don't trust most adults to do their god-damned jobs properly, and the way the Director talked about getting us into the Wards and about Ashley set off a lot of red flags. And what you've said has confirmed that I'm right not to trust the director as far as I can throw her. If she's not treating the Wards fairly then there needs to be a check on her control over the Wards."

"I guess," Missy admitted, "but trust me as bad as Piggy gets the Youth Guard is gonna be way worse."

"It's either the Youth Guard or trying to get her fired-was she the one who signed off on that PR stunt that took up literally the Entire Protectorate?"

"I don't know," Missy said with a shrug.

"Well, that's something to look into." As I thought about it… The clusterfuck at the Bank would have gone down differently if there was even one adult Cape there. Whoever was responsible for all of the adult capes being busy with something so stupid as a PR stunt… Whoever decided that was the one responsible for Panacea's death and everything else that happened that day.

Vista turned off her light. "Look, I should probably get some sleep. I don't… Look, I get it, but..."

And then she laid down and made no more sounds.

And that's I realized that I could see perfectly fine without my glasses. In fact, I think I could see better now than I ever could in my life.

One of my hands was free of tubes enough for me to raise it, and I spent the next minute contemplating my hand until I noticed a small seam at my wrist.

As I was looking at it, a new set of senses joined the bugs in the building. I could see in perfect clarity a crevice of some kind. I bid the bug to go forward and saw a white spider with purple eyes crawl out of the seam of my wrist just in time to look down and see myself from the spider's perspective.


	16. Interlude 3(Val)

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

Spider-Man: One of the longest active heroes, around since the beginning of the Heroic Age. Possessing physical attributes between four and twenty times peek-human capability and a 250 IQ, an all-around asset as long as you can put up with his sense of humor.

X-23 and Honey Badger: Opposite-sex clones of Wolverine with variations on his power set, making them the best there is at what they do. With claws, high-end regenerative healing factors, martial arts training, and enhanced senses, they're the ultimate spies and assassins-X-23 more than Honey Badger, but Honey Badger makes up for her youth and relative lack of training with a stronger healing factor and nanites that remove her ability to feel pain.

Deadpool: The Regenerating Degenerate. The Merc With a Mouth. And a bunch of other titles… Basically the ultimate in hired muscle.

Mania: Hellfire manipulation, demon summoning, _and_ she's wearing an exact clone of the Venom symbiote with all the raw power that entails. In lieu of the traditional 'demonic spider-man' look, she's elected for armor, belts, and anime hair.

Agent Anti-Venom: Literary Agent Venom-with his decorated career in the united states army-with healing and anti-symbiote powers. Came in with Mania.

Ms. Marvel: A Human/Inhuman Hybrid who has undergone Terrigenesis, resulting in a combination of Mister Fantastic, Giant Man, and Mystique

Energizer: Of the Power Pack, with the ability to absorb energy, slowly generate energy, discharge energy in the form of kinetic force, and convert matter into energy. She's been a superhero since she was only five years old.

Gwenpool: Origin unknown. History is unknown. Powers unknown. Just knows things. Some kind of reality warping abilities speculated to be sorcery. Doesn't wear pants for some reason.

And me, Brainstorm: The smartest girl in the universe and future Sorcerer and Scientist Supremes

"We are assembled here," the now teenaged Valeria Richards said to the gathered heroes as they stood in the lobby of what appeared to be an abandoned office building in a suburb of New York City, "because you're the only ones who answered my E-flyer." She did her best not to sound discouraged and managed to stand proud in her silver unstable molecule uniform.

"Yeah," Gwenpool began, "I'm gonna admit I didn't read the whole thing. I just saw that Richards needed help with something and signed up."

"Valeria?" Energizer asked. "Didn't I used to be older than you by a lot?"

"So from your perspective, my family and the Future Foundation were only gone a year but it was five from our perspective."

Energizer, or rather Katie, held up her fingers. "That math doesn't add up."

"Don't think about it, kid," Deadpool interrupted. "It's comic logic."

Spider-Man facepalmed. "Here we go..."

"And for the record," Deadpool continued, "the real reason we're all here is because we're the Ratman's favorites."

"Whose favorites?" Gwenpool asked, bent over inquisitively.

"I'll explain later," Deadpool replied. "Besides, it doesn't matter why we're here. I'm not saying no to an adventure with my bestest friends," He finished as he pulled Spider-Man into a side-hug and patted Honey Badger's head.

"Wade," Spider-Man said. "Do we need to have the personal space talk again?"

"Probably," Deadpool said cheerfully without releasing Spider-Man from the side-hug.

"You know," Agent Anti-Venom commented, "Spider-Man and Deadpool… That's the most unlikely friendship I could ever think of."

"There's a good person deep down inside him," was Spider-Man's only reply. "Very deep down."

"Spidey makes me want to be a better person," Deadpool answered more seriously.

Agent Anti-Venom cocked his head slightly. "You know what, me too."

"Deadpool has a point," Ms. Marvel said. "I'll be honest, _some_ of you wouldn't be my first choices but a team-up between heroes that don't normally work together is bound to b interesting-"

"I know, right!" Gwenpool interrupted. "We've got Spider-People and X-People and Fantastic Four affiliates and an inhuman all working together. If we only had a Hulk this would be the perfect super adventure. I'm sure there's at least one person would there who'd like a story about something like this."

Deadpool, having since released Spider-Man and Honey Badger, pounded his heart with a fist and made a peace sign. "We miss you, Stan."

"I hate to say this," Val said once the conversation lulled, "but I doubt this is gonna be a _fun_ adventure, so..." She stepped behind the receptionist's desk and typed something into the computer.

Immediately the whirring of machinery kicked to life. Mania had to leap as the segment of the floor she'd been standing on began to move out of the way, revealing a staircase.

X-23's nose wrinkled, but she didn't say anything.

Honey Badger was less polite. "It smells like a bunch of spoiled meat farted."

"Yeah, there are a couple hundred corpses down there," Valeria admitted. "I was doing some basic dimensional fabric studies, noticed an anomaly here and… I'm smart enough to admit when I'm out of my depths."

With concern and a more somber mood, the assembled heroes descended downstairs at least three sub-basements down before coming down to a vault door that was still open.

Spider-Man went in first…

And stopped when he came across the corpse of Peter Parker floating in a tube. "This is never a good sign."

Deadpool came up behind him. "Why would anyone want to clone that loser?"

Spider-Man didn't reply. Instead, he said aloud, "clones… Why is it always clones? I _hate_ dealing with clones."

"Hey!" Honey Badger shouted, clearly offended. "Clone, right here. Clone of a clone even," she said with a gesture to X-23.

"Sorry, that's not what I meant," Spider-Man replied apologetically. "What I mean is that I hate the people who make clones." He turned back to Valeria. "So, who is it? Jackal? Sinister? The High Evolutionary?"

"I don't know," Valeria admitted. "I..." She seemed to be somewhere between fear and embarrassment. "When I found this place, I was just expecting a rift into the Negative Zone or a remnant of the Secret Wars, not..." She gestured further into the room.

There were hundreds of cloning tubes. Some intact. Most broken open."

And hundreds of corpses on the ground. Most of them were nude, obviously clones, but a handful seemed to be paramilitary and a few more were in lab coats.

"This is so far outside my frame of reference… I thought I could handle it on my own… Until I found bodies of clones of Dad and Uncle Doom arranged in a way that very much looked like a mutual kill. Something big happened here. I need to figure it out, and I need help."

Spider-Man walked away from the tube with his own dead clone floating in it back to the entrance where Brainstorm still stood and kneeled so to be on face level with Valeria.

"Val? Why did you send out an E-Flyer instead of asking your family for help?"

Valeria averted her gaze from Spider-Man's eyespots. "Uncle Ben and Alicia are getting married. Everyone's been busy working on stuff for the wedding… I didn't want to ruin anything."

Spider-Man hummed. "Val, take it from someone who's been superheroing since he was just a few years older than you are and has run into a _lot_ of situations like this. When there's something like this, something in the community that's got you upset, it helps to talk about it. If you've got someone close to you that's in the know, it's best to try to talk about it with them. When we're done investigating here, you should really tell your parents about this."

Valeria wanted to say something, something to deny it, but she couldn't think of anything. "Yeah… You're right. Thanks..."

"If you want to thank me," Spider-Man said in complete seriousness, "get me an invitation to the wedding."

"I'll see what I can do."

The others had spread out and started searching the cloning lab while Val and Spider-Man were talking. Their attention was drawn by someone shouting "NOOOOO!"

Immediately they sprinted to the sound of the scream. Spider-Man, being faster, made it there a moment before Val.

They found Honey Badger kneeling before a tube with the submerged body of a clone of X-23. "I could have had another sister..."

Everyone began congregating around this cloning tube, summoned by the distress in Honey Badger's cry.

X-23 pulled her side-kick up from the ground and placed a hand on her shoulder. She said something, but Val didn't hear it before Gwenpool walked out from behind an invisible wall in the middle of the group at that exact moment and spoke up.

"So, yeah, I just found a room full of transfusion bags labeled 'Mutant Growth Hormone,' " she said while holding one up. "I don't know how much this stuff sells for, but I'm pretty sure the people here could have flooded the market if they'd wanted to."

"A bag that size would sell for anywhere between twenty and eighty bucks. Depends on what powers it gives you, how watered down it is, and if it's been laced with anything. Could be as much as a hundred twenty if it's a _really_ good power set." Deadpool explained with surprising coherence.

Everyone turned to look at him. "What? I'm a mercenary. You learn these things."

"May I?" X-23 said with a gesture to the transfusion bag. Gwenpool tossed it to her without fuss. X-23 made a small opening in the bag and sniffed it a couple of times.

"This is almost pure MGH," she said. "There are some impurities, some adrenaline, insulin, traces of blood plasma, but this is mostly MGH..." another sniff. "Rough estimate, ten percent saline, and other than trace impurities the rest is MGH. And it's organic. This was pulled out of someone's veins."

"Eighty a bag, minimum," Deadpool finished while randomly playing with an automatic pistol.

"Then that room's got a couple million in MGH, at least," Gwenpool concluded.

In response, Deadpool dropped his gun. It went off, shooting Honey Badger in the left shin.

This prompted X-23 to glare at Deadpool. Simultaneously, Honey Badger carefully hopped down so that she was sitting on the floor. "I'm okay," she said as she extended the claw in her right hand with a 'snikt,' "I don't feel pain. I heal. I've just gotta get the bullet out." She then rolled up her pant leg and starting digging through her own flesh.

"She's way too casual about this," a somewhat green around the gills Ms. Marvel said.

"She cut off her middle finger and gave it to me once," Deadpool shared.

"First," Spider-Man interrupted, "Wade, give me your guns, you can have them back at the end of class."

"Oh, come on Webs, it was an acciden-"

"Now, Wade."

Reluctantly, the mercenary parted with three automatic firearms, before Spider-Man stopped him.

"I just realized,".he said, "I don't have anywhere to put these. Just… Just keep the safety on."

Deadpool took back his firearms and made a show of fiddling with the safety switch of each one.

Then one of them went off and hit Honey Badger in the right forearm as she stood back up. She rolled her eyes, extended her other claw, and casually popped the bullet from her arm. "Are we done now? With the shooting?"

"Anyway," Spider-Man continued, "Uh… Gwenpool, right? Can you take us to where you found the MGH?"

"Yeah," Gwenpool replied. "It's this way."

The pink-and-white, pantsless mercenary led the assembled heroes off away from the main area full of cloning tubes and corpses down to a hallway. "By the way… I noticed you were a bit uncomfortable a bit ago, Spider-Man… Uh… I'm not Gwen Stacy. I'm not even an alternate Gwen Stacy. My name actually is Gwen Poole… My tailor misread an application and I just rolled with the 'Girl Deadpool' look."

"How did-"

"I mean, the Night Gwen Stacy Died was major news for a couple of weeks," Gwenpool explained perhaps a little too quickly, "and I really, really like Superheroes so when I looked up some facts about you it just kind of-"

"She comes from an alternate universe where we're all comic book characters." Deadpool interrupted. "She knows stuff because she's a colossal Comic Book Geek. Her life is basically an SI fanfic IRL."

"Oh," Spider-Man said. "Why didn't you just say so?"

"What?"

"You'd be surprised how often stuff like that happens," Spider-Man with a handwave. "I met up with the Web Warriors once. Apparently, they tried to recruit Spider-People to fight an army of Electros and absolutely _shattered_ the perception of reality of a guy who plays me in movies. Just don't give out anyone's secret identities and there won't be any problems."

"Oh… Kay. You know there's cartoons about you, too. One in the 90s ended with you coming to the 'real world' and having a talk with the guy who created your comics."

"Sounds nice," Spider-Man said with a nod.

"And since everything's out in the open, Mephi-"

Deadpool put a hand on Gwen's shoulder. "Kid. You can only do so much at once."

"...Fine."

"So," Mania spoke up, "are they cloning people _just_ to harvest them for Mutant Growth Hormone? That seems kind of… horribly wasteful?"

"Maybe they didn't want to worry about missing person reports?" Honey Badger speculated.

"No," Val interrupted. "Mutant Growth Hormone is made of mutation factor, and mutation factor is only found in Mutants, Inhumans, and a handful of subcategories of mutates. Most of the clones, at least the ones I saw, were mutates who don't have a mutation factor."

They made it to a storage room, a large one, absolutely full of plastic boxes. One was open an filled with four transfusion bags of mutant growth hormone.

A quick check revealed that the other boxes, for the most part, had similar contents, five transfusion bags of MGH.

X-23 and Honey Badger each started sniffing around the room.

"This all came out of one person," X-23 said.

That… Didn't sound right. Val started doing calculations in her head. "Okay, even assuming maximum daily extraction under ideal circumstances and accounting for the loss of mass as the fluids are refined, it'd take ten years to extract this much from a healthy adult man..."

"Maybe they pulled it out of a guy with the same powers as Multiple Man?" Deadpool suggested. "Or maybe time travel? Or clones, since we are in a cloning lab?"

"I can smell whoever this came out of," Honey Badger said. "Come on, this way," she said, running out of storage room further down the hall.

"Gabby, wait!" X-23 called out as she ran after Honey Badger. "We don't know what's down here!"

A few minutes later, the rest of the group found the two be-clawed regenerators in what appeared to be an operating theatre. There was a metal table and some cabinets and drawers that X-23 and Honey Badger were searching, and what looked like a high-tech dialysis machine.

"Whoever the 'donor' for the MGH was," X-23 explained without looking as they came into the room, "they spent a lot of time in this room."

"Hey, Laura," Honey Badger questioned, "what was the name of that clinic the Sapien League burned down about a year ago? The one Dr. McCoy mentioned?"

The Tam and Coolah clinic. Why?"

"I just found a patient record from there," Honey Badger finished. "I don't think that was the Sapien League."

Honey Badger stepped back, holding up several papers. "Mutant, chronic health problems from a hormonal imbalance… Power of superhuman hormone production… And if she's still alive, she's ten."

You could hear a pin drop as everyone realized how all of the MGH could have come from one person.

And then Deadpool spoke up. "What are the odds that any of the people running this place made it out of here alive?"

"...Why?" Val asked.

"Because I want to introduce them to my new knives: Blanch. Rose, Sophia, and Dorothy."

Spider-Man cocked his head. "You named your knives after the Golden Girls?"

"I ran out of permutations of Bea Arthur's name, so I branched out."

"I found something else," X-23 interrupted. She stood up holding a document binder. She flipped it open. "It mostly seems like records of setting up the lab… Wait, here… 'Acquiring the subject...' They murdered a little girl's parents for this… 'Maintenance' They're not even... Here's something more substantial."

X-23 cleared her throat and read allowed.

"Subject was conscious during routine re-application of the extraction needles. Subject cried the whole time, begging for her mother. I reminded her that we killed her parents."

"So, I'm agreeing with Deadpool right now," Gwenpool added.

"There's another more descriptive entry," Laura went on. "Subject chided me for swearing after she bit me before calling me the rough Gaelic equivalent of 'mother fucker' and wishing that the Devil would shatter the bones of my back and use them to make a ladder with which to pick apples in the gardens of Hell in the same language. I did not tell her I understood what she was saying, nor did I comment on her hypocrisy."

X-23 flipped a few pages. "Patient woke up from a nightmare. Stated a belief that Spider-Man would find out about what we're doing here and 'beat our butts up between our ears' and rescue her."

Spider-Man became deathly still at that.

"We still haven't found what we're here for," he said after a few minutes.

"Guys," Mania interrupted, "my symbiote says it can sense a lot of dead symbiotes."

"Specifically dead ones?" Ms. Marvel questioned.

"There's a hivemind," Mania explained, "my symbiote can sense things that are part of the hive mind but that aren't alive. A lot…"

"Yeah," Agent Anti-Venom added. "I'm getting it too. I'll take point for now, if no one minds."

They moved on, further still down the hall. Val could hear Spider-Man mumbling about how it was looking like everything he hated dealing with was involved.

"So I've been wondering," Deadpool said as they walked. "Now, I heard about that incident with Maniac and all that. Last I heard, little missy here was down a symbiote." He gestured to Mania. "What gives."

"We were attacked," Agent Anti-Venom said without looking back. A dark-haired woman and a blond man, both in nice suits and both with the kind of movements that it takes years of training to instill in someone. They had the Mania symbiote in a vial but lost it in the fight. The vial shattered and the symbiote returned to Andrea.

"My symbiote says that the woman approached price in prison and stabbed him to death to get it," Mania added. "I think they threw the fight though. They just up and left through a portal after stabbing Flash once. There was a piece of anti-venom on the woman's knife."

Five minutes later they walked through a large room with the corpse of what appeared to be a clone of Abomination leaning up against a large glass cube with one of the side cracked open. At the far end of the room was a vault door.

A massive hole in the wall showed that the room full of clones was on the other side.

"So, did anyone notice that while we were in that room?" Gwenpool lampshaded. "I mean, it's a big room, but I feel like that could have saved us a couple of minutes if anyone had noticed it."

No one responded because Gwen's statement was immediately followed by loud, repeating clanging.

Everyone's attention was drawn to the vault, where Mania had formed a large blade from her arm and was trying and failing to carve it open.

"I think the vault is made of Adamantium," she admitted after her fifth attempt to carve it open. "Does anyone have class-100 strength, or do I need to break out the Hellfire and melt through?"

"...Why?" Spider-Man asked.

"The symbiotes are in there," Mania deadpanned. "Why else? Now, can anyone break the door down or do I have to be awesome at it?"

"You're being silly," Energizer said

This made Deadpool jump. "Forgot she was here."

"I get that a lot," the blonde in the yellow spandex replied. "If my sister wasn't dating one of the Runaways, I don't think anyone other than the Fantastic Four would remember the Power Pack exists. Anyway," she said as she walked up to vault door, "you don't need to smash or burn it, you've just got to..."

Energizer tapped the vault door a few times, and then placed a hand next to the wheel.

The vault door glowed yellow for a moment and then disintegrated, with the dust sublimating away into nothing.

She stepped back and turned away from the now wide-open vault and clapped once. "Tada!"

"...Has anyone noticed that the strongest superheroes tend to be the young ones?" Deadpool commented. "I mean, it's not something you think about very often, but… I mean, it even applies to folks like us. Back when Webs was a teenager he wiped the floor with the Fantastic Four and with a robot that had absolutely wrecked the original Avengers… But now that he's a geezer he'd probably never been able to pull that off again."

"I'm only in my mid-twenties, Wade."

"Still!?"

"So, anyway, there aren't symbiote zombies trying to eat our brains," Spider-Man said while ignoring Deadpool's outburst. He pulled up the shirt of his costume slightly so that he could fiddle with his belt, "so let's see what's in that vault."

With a click, the miniaturized spotlight that Spider-Man kept in his belt illuminated the vault with a stylized image of his mask.

The contents of the vault were not, in fact, symbiotes. The Scorpion had, in recent years, taken to augmenting his strength with powered armors. Sometimes those armors had claws like a true scorpion. Within the vault were ten armors modeled on those on racks, five on either wall. It was hard to make out in the light of the spider-signal, but it seemed that nine of them were solid black but the tenth was gold with blue accents.

Behind each rack was a mounted harness with several mechanical tendrils attached to it, each one matched the colors of the scorpion suit in front of it.

Spider-Man approached the nearest display and examined the tendrils… "Well, Otto's gonna be mad if he ever finds out about this."

"...Isn't he dead?" Energizer asked.

Spider-Man sighed. "It's a long story."

Agent Anti-Venom poked a black Scorpion armor, which caused it to start melting. "Technology made of symbiotes… Why does this seem so familiar?"

"Iron Man's Mark 50 armor, the Endo-Sym, was made out of building blocks taken from the Venom Symbiote." Gwenpool recited as though she'd memorized a wiki page. It was basically a mindless, fire and soundproof cyborg symbiote with Iron Man's gadgets and weapons put in it."

"And before that," Spider-Man added, "Iron Man and I busted up a company that pulled Carnage out of Orbit and were making prosthetics and knock-off Iron Man suits from bits of his symbiote… I wonder how Scorn's doing?"

"So, there's mass cloning… MGH harvesting… and biomechanical supervillain gear… And _something_ " The gears were turning in Val's head… "We haven't seen what they were really up to, yet. This..." And then Brainstorm had a brainstorm. "All we've seen so far have been prototypes. I already searched the top building, it's just a shell… Did anyone see anything that might have been a main office? Or a security room? I've got a hunch that needs-Where's Ms. Marvel?"

"I'm out here!" the shapeshifting teen heroine called. "I never went in the vault. Uh… I know where they got the symbiotes they were working on… And it's a lot more complicated than just Symbiotes."

Everyone left the vault to find Ms. Marvel on the opposite side of the glass tank. From this angle, a filing cabinet they hadn't noticed earlier was visible. Ms. Marvel had opened it and was looking through some documents.

"Before I explain, uh..." Ms. Marvel began, "I was avoiding looking too closely at the bodies. How old did the scientist types look? According to this, they've been at this a while, but I think it's weird that so much of their records are still analog."

No one had an answer. Ms. Marvel proceeded to summarize what she'd read. "So, they captured a symbiote a while ago, when a bunch of them invaded the earth… You know, when there were two Spider-Men? Around that time? Anyway," she went on, "at first they were just experimenting on it to see what it could do, but eventually, they stumbled onto the organic technology angle… But a little over a year ago, their symbiote died after giving birth to a new one and they modified it to get better samples for their biotech… By splicing it with _our_ DNA."

" _Our_ DNA?" Gwenpool questioned.

"Well, not yours specifically," Ms. Marvel corrected. "But… From the super community. According to this, the second symbiote was spliced with Mystique's DNA… My DNA..." Ms. Marvel sounded particularly uncomfortable with that. "The DNA of the Lizard, The Thing, Sabretooth, Captain America-with 'the real one' in parenthesis-Kraven the Hunter, Colossus, Spider-Man," she gestured to Spider-Man, who said a swear under his breath, "Tippy-Toe, with a note that it didn't do anything and the scientist who suggested it was shot… Lockheed, Captain Marvel-Carol, not any of the other ones, She-Hulk, and The Leader. IT also says that they fed it one of the armors and a set of Tentacles that they made form its parent, which another document said had the Scorpion's DNA and Doc Ock's in them, that they got ahold of mystical energy from multiple Asgardians-it didn't say how-that changed the Osmium-Steel it got from Colossus into Uru when it was exposed to it-and they tested the magic absorbing abilities by exposing it to Hellfire from one of the Ghost Riders… They didn't say which one..."

"So, to recap, there's a dimensional anomaly here that we still haven't figured out," Spider-Man said as he began counting off on his fingers, "we're surrounded by dead clones of most of the super-community, and there's a horrifying Super-Symbiote completly unaccounted for. So, when does Galactus get here?" He questioned. "Or Dormammu? Does anyone know what Ultron, Thanos, or Apocalypse are up too? Because I don't know how this could possibly get worse, but I just know it will."

"It's uh..." Ms. Marvel flipped through the documents she was holding. "Probably not a super symbiote. The notes here say it was never as powerful as they expected it to be."

"It's probably because of your DNA," Val said as if it were a matter of fact.

"Excuse me?"

"You're an Inhuman," Val said. "A lot of the other samples came from mutants. Inhumans and Mutants are biologically incompatible-Quicksilver and Crystal's daughter came out as a normal human, other than the not-dying from having her latent superhuman potential unlocked by Terrigen. When Quicksilver tried to re-empower the post-M-Day mutants with Terrigen, most of them died."

"The other X-Men stumbled on a plot by Mister Sinister to create stronger mutants by mixing them with inhuman DNA," X-23 added as if remembering something, "A clone of cyclops with inhuman DNA and Terrigen melted down and exploded while they were fighting it..."

"And then there's the M-Pox," Ms. Marvel finished sheepishly…

"For all we know, the Symbiote's already dead from its own incompatible-Wait, what's M-Pox?" Val asked.

"A lot happened while you guys were gone," Spider-Man said to the young girl. "I'll see about getting you filled in later."

"Anyway," Val said. "I think I know what's going on. We need to find a main office."

Rather than go around the long way, the assembled heroes simply went out through the hole in the wall.

Val would never admit it, but she felt a little stupid when it took her ten minutes to look up.

About half-way up to the main room's high-vaulted ceilings was a catwalk that encircled the room.

And in the center of one wall, with a view of the whole chamber, was a large window. Next to it was an automatic door with a keypad.

"I found something!" She called out. "There's a door. Does anyone see stairs or a later or..."

Val was reminded that most of the group had superhuman physical attributes and/or the ability to teleport when she and Energizer were left in the lower levels while everyone else made it up to the catwalk.

Luckily, they didn't have to say anything. Ms. Marvel noticed and they had a somewhat pleasant giant-hand ride back up.

"Okay, so the password to open the secret entrance upstairs was-"

Val was cut off by Mania kicking the door off its track and into the room.

"This one wasn't Adamantium," the teen said smugly.

"Never mind," Val said with a sigh.

Inside the room was a computer with a large monitor surrounded by a dozen asymmetrically placed smaller monitors of various sizes mounted on the walls around it.

Val cracked her knuckles. "Everyone, stand back and give me five minutes."

Three minutes later, Val had cracked her way into every password-protected part of the computer.

"Okay, first, let's check the security footage from a few weeks ago, figure out what happened," Val said as she pulled up multiple time-lapse videos on the various monitors.

Everyone watched in silence as days sped before their very eyes, before one clone-no one could make out of who from that camera's vantage point, woke up, struggled, shattered his tube, and escaped, breaking more tubes and freeing more clones in the process, leading to chaos. Seemingly confused clones soon became a screaming mob fighting amongst themselves with many dying at each other's hands.

"Oh, fuck webs, they cloned our daughter!" Deadpool shouted, pointing to a blue, multi-limbed woman with a spider-mouth on one of the monitors.

"Don't call her that, Wade," Spider-Man said half-heartedly. In the corner of her eye, Val could see that his gaze was alternating between the camera feed of the gold and blue symbiote in the glass case and the one of the little girl hooked up to machine constantly harvesting her for the production of MGH.

The fighting among the clones, with armed guards joining the fray and other workers, scientists mostly, being killed in the crossfire was too chaotic to follow clearly until the end, when two young men each with telekinetic and energy manipulation abilities on display, one brunette and one blonde, clashed repeatedly, which distracted the surviving clones so that it was only the two fighting.

The transformed corpse of an abomination clone was hurled through a wall-on the display of the symbiote room, it was shown hitting the glass case, freeing the symbiote trapped within which slithered down the hall until it found its way to the little girl being harvested for hormones.

"Oh no..." Spider-Man said as the symbiote engulfed and bonded to the child, and the symbiote possessed child fled back into the hall and from there into the main room.

A few more clones had been killed in the crossfire of the fight between the two high-level psychics, which sparked fighting again as the symbiote emerged out into the room.

One last clash of raw power between the two created a vortex of blue light that created a black hole effect-everyone in the room that wasn't already dead was sucked in. Then the feed cut off.

Val searched through the computer a bit more. "It seems that the power went down and it took an hour for emergency power to come back on. In that time all the life support failed and the clones who didn't wake up died." Val stood up, cracked her neck, and sat back down. "So, the blonde looked like Mister Franklin-an older version of my brother from the future-and the brunette was pretty clearly Nate Grey's clone… Two high-end reality warpers in a fight… No wonder there was a dimensional anomaly, they basically tore the universe several new-"

"Val," Spider-Man interrupted, "is there a way to find out if anyone survived that or where they ended up."

"Yeah," the girl-genius said casually. "I can even build something to take people there if they ended up somewhere life-sustaining, but it'll take anywhere between a couple of days and a couple of months depending on if they ended up in this universe or a different one and where they are in relation to here. Why?"

"...A bunch of scared and confused people-one of them a little girl being controlled by a monster-got sent to who knows where. As superheroes, it's our responsibility to find them and bring them home, if only so they can't hurt themselves or others… I mean, clones are people, too… We can't just..." Spider-Man kind of trailed off, lamely.

"I'll see what I can do… After we talk with my parents," Val added when she remembered her earlier conversation with Spider-Man. She returned to work on the computer, searching its files for any final details about what this was all meant to be about. "And… Hunch confirmed," she said. "There's a mysterious backer funding the project… cloning's based on bootleg Jackal-Tech… And the end goal was mass produced super soldiers for sale on the black market… The normal clones were proof of concept, phase one. Phase two was hybrid clones-combining symbiotes with their hosts or mixing people with similar powers together. Phase three is kept below the main room."

Val typed a few things into the computer's attached keyboard, and then the loud grinding of gears reverberated through the complex.

Val stood up and approached the window to watch as the floor down below them split apart, cloning tubes and the corpses around them shifting away as a platform rose from below the floor.

There were now six cloning tubes that were each far larger than any of the others. Horrific, distorted, twisted _things_ filled four of the tubes, some squished against the glass.

Even from this far, it was clear as day that something was wrong with them-one was a mass of arms and tentacles and other, harder to describe limbs. One appeared to be a large anthropomorphic cat-ape-wolf-thing with half a dozen malformed bone-blades at the end of its wrists and horrific, disproportionate limbs and bulging muscles. The third simply looked like the worst of The Abomination, the Thing, and Mister Hyde, while the fourth simply could not be described with mere words.

Everyone seemed somewhat disgusted... At least everyone whose faces and/or body language Val could read, except for Energizer but the Power Pack's history had left them exposed to a lot of Body Horror so Katie had probably built a resistance to it all.

"According to the documents on the computer," Val explained, "this was the final prototype. Each one of them uses Captain America as a base but uses symbiote DNA as a binder to merge in the genetic traits of other genomes. Abomination, Hulk, Thing, and Hide. Wolverine's family, Beast, Sasquatch, Feral, and Wolfsbane. The Squid, a slightly tweaked Spider-Man, and someone named Marcus, and too many to list off for the last one. If you look the bases, there's a bit more tech in their tubes than the other ones," Val continued, "they'd put MGH bags into the base and it'd infuse the nutrient broth with it. Constant exposure to steadily higher doses during gestation ensuring the activation of genetically based powers and enhancing them to an ungodly level… The people who ran this place where madmen. Geniuses, but madmen."

She gestured to the two empty tanks.

"All records of whatever was in there was erased, as was security footage from the day after everything went pear-shaped..." Val sighed. "Either someone survived and got out while they could, with whatever they could carry, and made sure to cover their tracks..." Val pushed a strand of hair out of her face. "Or I'm not the first person to find this place."


	17. Interlude 4(Goblins)

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

He was sweeping up when his employer arrived.

How long had it been? A couple of weeks, at least. He'd woken up naked in a tube, in the midst of a brawl between every superhuman he could think of.

And then he'd been in Boston Massachusetts.

Okay, technically he wasn't 'him,' but honestly, cloning more of a technicality. There'd been one Roderick Kingsley, now there's two Roderick Kingsleys.

Regardless, a few weeks ago he'd had nothing, not even a shirt on his back. Now, he had a job with the greatest criminal Mastermind in Boston. You'd be surprised what careful arrangement of suit stolen off the rack, some well-spoken, polite words, and a rudimentary demonstration of one's genius could do. He had funding and shelter now, in this strange world, and that was everything he needed. The Hobgoblin would rise.

Accord, accompanied by two bodyguards, dressed identically, one on either side of him so that they formed a symmetrical profile, entered the laboratory that the crime-boss had so generously provided Kingsley with.

"I'm terribly sorry about the God-awful mess," Kingsley said graciously. In truth, the mess was so incredibly minor that only someone with an obsessive attention to detail would notice it, but it'd taken all of five minutes for Kingsley to realize that this was the case for Accord. "A handful of ruffians managed to get inside, but it was nothing I couldn't handle." Kingsley gave a measured smile. "They won't be troubling any civilized gentlemen ever again. I'd hoped to finish cleaning up before you arrived, however, it seems that in that endeavor I've failed."

Accord seemed distracted. His gaze was drawn to a single floor tile with just a small, barely noticeable, bit of blood on it. "Do you need to reschedule?"

"Oh, no no no no," Kingsley said. "Nothing occurred that would jeopardize the demonstration, and I'm sure that you scheduled the demonstration of my technology at this time for a reason."

"...Yes, of course," Accord said after a moment. "When we're done here, I'll be sending someone to speak with you regarding the so-called ruffians."

"I have the bodies in storage," Kingsley said professionally. Kingsley lead his current employer and said employer's bodyguards around the laboratory that he'd been provided with.

"This," he said with a gesture to a metallic structure modeled loosely on a bat, "is a military grade glider. It is operated manually with slight movements of the pilot's feet or remotely with a device hidden in the wrist of the flight suit." Kingsley gestured in turn to a lightly armored bodysuit. He approached it and revealed a panel of buttons hidden in the wrist.

"The glider is rocket powered," Kingsley explained, "turns on a dime with the slightest movement of the pilot, can experience days of use without the need for refueling, can support up to twice its weight, and has both an automatic assault weapon and a pair of blades concealed within it. It is aesthetically customizable-I'm personally fond of a variant I call the 'demon glider.'" Kingsley pressed a button hidden in the flight suit, deploying the glider's hidden blades.

Accord took in the glider. He was clearly impressed, but something seemed… Off. The crime lord cocked his head to either side as if trying to measure something. Perhaps trying to judge if the glider was mounted evenly.

"Onto the flight suit itself," Kingsley continued, "it is lightly armored with highly durable composite materials capable of taking light arms fire with minimal damage-not enough to make a bullet not hurt, but enough to keep it from killing you. The suit is light enough that it can be worn under other clothing or armors, though one will want to leave the wrists exposed." Kingsley removed the gloves and put them on.

"Within the gloves of the flight suit are a pair of high voltage tasers that are activated by gripping just right," Kingsley demonstrated the movements, "with variable settings. The default setting is enough to kill an injured man."

Kingsley had a target set up in the laboratory, opposite of the glider's mount. He pointed both index fingers at the target, a standard bullseye, and green lasers erupted from the tips and scorched two spots on the bullseye a burnt black.

"And a low-level laser weapon is hidden in each index finger. In and of itself it's not enough to be lethal, but sustained repeated fire could cause severe injuries and could be used to inflict the coup de grace on a defeated enemy if that is what is desired."

"Most impressive, most impressive," Accord admitted. However, like before he seemed distracted and approached the target, examining the scorch marks. Kingsley allowed him to do so, waiting until he returned his attention to Kingsley to move on.

"Most importantly, of course," Kingsley said as he went to the far end of the room and pulled back a curtain he'd had affixed, revealing a massive glass vat. "The goblin formula."

"Named for mythological creatures of trickery, mercantilism, and artifice, the goblin formula was meant to vastly increase the intellect-in every conceivable way-of those who imbibe it. However, the finished goblin formula beyond pushing human intellect beyond that which can be measured also enhances physical attributes to between four and sixteen times peak human limits and bestows a slow but powerful healing factor." Kingsley paused for effect. "The effects of the formula are permanent, and are accompanied by heritable genetic mutations-not only will one who is dosed with the formula be enhanced in mind and body, but any children they conceive will likewise possess enhanced physical and mental capabilities."

"...Why is there a drop of paint on the floor?" Accord asked, apparently ignoring everything that Kingsley just said. One of his bodyguards flinched while the other seemed to brace himself as if for a coming explosion.

"What?" Kingsley asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

"There is a drop of orange paint, in the middle of the floor. Center tile, roughly one inch to my right from the center of the tile. Why?" Accord was slowly walking from where he'd stood to th offending tile. "Did one of the so-called ruffians come in here with some comically inefficient paint based weapon?"

"No sir," Kingsley said sounding concerned. "Only two men entered and neither of them… I-wait!"

Just as Accord made it to the tile, the wall to Accord's left was punctured simultaneously to the sound of an explosion and a bullet caught the crime boss in the throat... Kingsley hit the ground as three more wall piercing rounds sounded off and a meaty thump announced that Accord had hit the ground.

When it was clear that the gunfire had ceased, Kingsley pushed himself up to find that Accord's panicked bodyguards were checking their employer for signs of life.

"This is my fault," Kingsley said with a tone and expression of horror. "I should have asked to reschedule… The men who invaded, that wasn't an accident… They must have been a distraction," Kingsley rambled. "Someone, some rival crime lord must have learned that I was working for Accord. Must have learned he was coming today, and… they must have sent someone to distract me while they planted something to draw his attention..."

Kingsley was shaking.

"The bullets could only have come from the abandoned warehouse next door. If you're quick, you might be able to find the shooter."

Accord's bodyguards left the lab.

One minute later, Kingsley stood, approached the cooling corpse of his most recent employer, and smiled. "Hook, line, sinker." He gave a subdued laugh. "This is why the mentally ill shouldn't engage in organized crime. It's why Osborn never succeeded in anything worthwhile. The compulsions. The psychoses...They're weaknesses. They make you so predictable. I'm surprised that no one else tried this."

Accord's bodyguards would find a bare-bones turret linked to an infrared sensor. As soon as a heat signature in that exact location had been detected, four armor piercing rounds would be fired from a rifle into the heat signature. The generic nature of the weapon combined with the lack of prints-Kingsley was careful-could point to anyone in town. Staging the results of an attack that Kingsley had just barely finished cleaning up both began to set Accord on edge and gave Kingsley an alibi. The slightly off balancing of the glider on its mount, the just slightly asymmetrical scorch marks stressed Accord slightly and ensured that he'd take notice of the small paint stain, sealing his fate.

"Of course, the Ambassadors can't afford to let the public know that you're dead. The city would fall into absolute anarchy." Kingsley laughed again. "And it just so happens that you recently hired a genius with impeccable acting skills who is oh so broken up about his inadvertent part in your death who is willing to pose as you and keep your dream alive…"

And he'd already subverted the security in the building. The digital security cameras would have no record of anything that would implicate Kingsley or contradict his story, as what would be detected as a 'one in a million glitch' had caused them all to malfunction on the first day that Kingsley had set up shop.

"Honestly, the hard part had been finding two low lives who I could kill easily who also had ties to those… Teeth people. Don't worry. I'll take good care of the Ambassadors. And make a fortune doing it."

And then, Kingsley returned to a look of concern and horror, going back to his act, so that the bodyguards wouldn't suspect anything when they returned.

"Of course," he said as he gestured to the restrained homeless man who was now panicking as he'd turned into a green scaled, bat-eared creature, "this was a rush-job with insufficient resources." He'd had to burglarize a high-school in a bad neighborhood for ingredients, "so there were some side effects."

How long had it been? A couple of weeks, at least. He'd woken up naked in a tube, in the midst of a brawl between every superhuman he could think of.

And then he'd been in been in a slum in some city he'd never even heard off. He'd murdered a homeless man for some clothes and made to do research. It'd seemed that he'd found himself in an alternate reality. No connection to his home universe, as far as he could tell, but that just meant that no one here had ever heard of Norman Osborn.

Okay, technically he was a clone, but he didn't see how that was relevant. He had Norman Osborn's DNA, his powers, his knowledge, skill, and memories. He was no more or less Norman Osborn than the original, and if he somehow met the original and he disagreed then they'd simply have to fight to the death.

"This," he said as he performed a backflip and landed upon on palm, "is more akin to what the perfected goblin formula is capable of. Physical attributes and intelligence enhanced to superhuman levels. And a strong healing factor. I was stabbed to death once and spontaneously reanimated with no brain damage a few hours later."

"Yes, yes, I can certainly see the potential of something like that..." Said the crime lord who Osborn had had the luck to gain an audience with. "And these blueprints… I don't normally evaluate Tinker-Tech myself, but this is simple enough to understand… I can see these goblin gliders seeing a lot of use..."

Finding Coil had been quite fortuitous. In truth, Osborn hadn't had a bit of bad luck since he'd ended up in this Brockton Bay. The closest thing had been that bush-headed beanpole with the overly excited oriental brat that walked into the library while he was using one of its computers to research the local history. She didn't think he saw her disdainful look, but he saw it… Maybe he'd throw her from a bridge? No. No. That'd been a special night. He'd at least have to bleach her hair first if he was going to recreate it, and it wouldn't be the same without a spider to taunt over it.

"I do have to ask," Coil began, "what your long term goals are? I can see the ambition in your eyes, you wouldn't be satisfied with just being the tech-man for an accomplished supervillain."

"You have quite the eye on you," Osborn complimented, "and you are correct. My ultimate goal is to relocate to another city and establish myself as a crime lord and supervillain in my own right. However, due to circumstances outside of my control, I am without funding, credentials, or connections. I'm no stranger to starting with nothing and having to work my way up, I've done it before and I'll do it again, and I'm sure that you can see the value of, in ten years time, having a criminal organization elsewhere owe you for the hand-up you gave it's founder when he was just starting out." Patience. That was the key. It was something that fool Kingsley never learned.

"That I can, that I can," Coil said as he stood up from his seat and began walking with his hands folded behind his back. "However, that is a rather hefty, long term investment. I'm not sure that what you're providing up front is enough… Tell me, Mister Osborn… My spies in the Parahuman Response Team tell me that there's an incident with Parahumans from another reality. I can't help but notice the timing of your appearance… Are you one of these so-called Mutants?"

Osborn's blood boiled, but he held his tongue. "No. I've got nothing personal against the muties. I respect a couple of them, even, but I'm not one of them. They're not even really people."

"But you _are_ from the other Earth, then?"

"Yes."

"Would you, perhaps, be willing to share with me details about your world?" Coil was now standing directly in front of Osborn. The opaque mask prevented direct eye contact, but Osborn got the point. He himself made a point of standing tall and looking his prospective employer directly in where he was certain his eyes were.

"Of course, sir."

"Good… Oh. and one more thing..." Coil said as he turned around and walked back to his chair. "I've been working on… Discrediting the local branch of the government-sponsored superhero team. The thought has just occurred to me that having an independent hero, someone who can't be traced back to me easily, in my pocket could only be of benefit to me, and so many, many parahumans just arrived out of nowhere..." He turned back around to face Osborn halfway to his seat. "So, have you ever considered being a Superhero, Mister Osborn?"

Osborn thought of his time as the head of HAMMER. "I've dabbled."

Phil Ulrich had been a good man once, at least that's what people say. He was the fourth Green Goblin. The _good_ Green Goblin, but only briefly.

Eventually, he lost his stolen goblin equipment and retired.

And then he formed Excelsior, a support group for current and former teenage villains, and something or other made him lose his mind. He became the Hobgoblin, the Goblin Knight, and the Goblin King… The maddest and most violent of all the Goblins,

And now his clone was running naked through the streets of Chicago, destroying random buildings with the super-sonic laugh that for some reason only he got from the Goblin formula.

It'd seemed that the cloning process had not been kind to Phil Ulrich, but it'd been kinder to him.

Yes, he was a clone. He didn't see how it mattered though. There'd been one Gabriel Stacy, now there were two.

Gabriel, the Grey Goblin-the Greatest Goblin-leaped from the building he'd been perched on, landed behind Phil's clone, and grabbed him by the head. With a wrench, Phil's neck was broken, and Gabriel carried the corpse back to a certain warehouse.

Okay, perhaps there was a difference between him and the original Gabriel. Original Gabriel was raised as an assassin, alongside his twin sister, to gain revenge on Spider-Man. He'd spent his entire life, up to the point that the genetic material used to make this Gabriel was taken, trying to earn Norman Osborn's love, respect, and acknowledgment. He'd even taken Osborn's attempt at recreating the Super Soldier Serum and posed as 'American Son' in his father's Avengers team.

This Gabriel, however, had found a family. Not exactly a typical one, but what was typical, anyway? Besides, he liked his new little sister much better than he liked his twin.

Chicago had been hit hard by the arrival of clones. Because of the chaos, most of it in the main city, Gabriel had a very uneventful walk to the warehouse despite the dead madman upon his shoulder.

Outside the warehouse was normal.

Inside was the wet dream of a medical torture fetishist, with mechanical boxes walking around on spider-legs tending to the mutilated corpses of Bonesaw's most recent victims. Gabriel recognized a few of them. There was Daken having his brain pulled apart. That sculpture of limbs and lungs had Komodo's face sewn onto it and the green scales on the arms and legs indicated that the rest of it was her parts as well.

He found Bonesaw next to a tube that had the conscious head and organs of a dark-haired man. He was screaming but no sounds came out. Bonesaw herself was sitting at a bloodsoaked cubicle desk examining something or other on a microscope. In her hand, she was fidgeting with a spike which, based on the massive pile of blood and orange scales on the far side of the warehouse, was one of Stegron's thagomizers.

"I didn't even know that there was a Stegron in town."

"Who? Oh, wait, is that the stegosaurus guy's name?" Bonesaw said as she looked up from the microscope. "Hey Gabriel-ooh, did you bring me a present?" she said excitedly when noticed Phil's corpse on his shoulder.

"That I did," Gabriel said as he sat the corpse down next to Bonesaw's desk. "I knew this guy, he's got the same powers as I do and a couple of others, from the same formula as me, but he's got less of it from a different version."

"Neat!" Bonesaw said with a smile. "So I went for a walk, tripped, fell down a torn open sewer grate, and while I was looking for the way back up. I found him mixing up something that's supposed to turn people into dinosaurs. He didn't want to play though, so I killed him with the same poison I use to finish off that lizard lady. Had to cut him up and make three trips to get back here, and apparently, he got his powers from the same thing that made lizard lady a lizard lady." She cracked her fingers. "I've already taken samples for more study and the thing he was gonna turn people into dinosaurs with because that's something I've been wanting to try for a while and-ooh, ooh, that reminds me of a story."

She stood up. "So, about a year ago we were somewhere in Kentucky looking for a guy Mannequin wanted to kill, a DNA tinker calling himself Genos. So we get to him, and he's built a chamber that can instantly rewrite DNA and have the changes take instant effect. Was gonna use it to cure cancer, and I'm like 'what a waste. With something like that, you could turn people into dinosaurs' and he's like 'I don't want to turn people into dinosaurs, I want to cure cancer.' Then Mannequin killed him." Bonesaw laughed, and Gabriel smiled.

"So," he said with a gesture to the desk and tube, "what are you working on now?"

"Well before we met you," she said while tapping the tube, "we ran into this Maximus guy. Tried to master us, but that set off my Berserker chip and I stabbed him to death. There's something or other in his body that I'm trying to figure out." She laughed again. "Also I accidentally reanimated his head so I hooked it up to some spare organs I have on hand and I'm measuring to see how long it'll take him to die again while I take another look at his tissue samples."

"Sounds like fun."

"Oh, it is. This has been a really fun and productive trip. Not even Bloodbath complaining about Myrrdin whooping his butt can ruin this for me." Bonesaw smiled. She'd confided in him, shortly after he joined the family, that she didn't much care for Bloodbath. "I'm gonna be able to make _so_ much fun stuff with what we've found here."


	18. Chapter 13

**Snuggles The Symbiote**

"Backpack?" Ashley asked.

"Check!" I answered back as I picked up my bag.

"Cellphone?" She asked.

I patted my pocket, where my PRT issue smartphone rested.

"Taser?"

"Ashley, I'm going to school," I said with a small smile. "I don't want to get kicked out on my last day."

I'd been out of the hospital for a little over a week, and today was my last day at Winslow. And I was in the vocation program, so I was only there for half a day. And nothing was gonna go wrong.

I grabbed my glasses-lenses replaced with non-prescription lenses-and looked back at Ashley. She was just wearing the thin white t-shirt and shorts we'd bought like a dozen sets of when we'd first gotten her clothes. "You need to get ready, too."

She smiled at me and then her symbiote emerged from inside her and formed the other set of clothes she always wore: A light blue t-shirt with what I now knew as a spider-man face logo in the center of the chest and a dark blue poodle skirt over black tights. Her hair stood on end and bound itself up into a ponytail of its own accord.

"You've been practicing?" It had taken her half a minute to change completely the last time I'd seen her do it and she'd had to do the ponytail manually. Now it'd only taken a few seconds.

"Yeah," she said with a nod. "Mister Snuggles and I have been practicing a lot since they won't let us patrol until after today." Director Piggot hadn't exactly been happy when I showed her the line in our contract that said we could only be punished for breach of contract or breaking the law. I'm pretty sure that she yelled at Deputy Director Reinick for agreeing to those terms since she called for him as soon as I left her office. But putting us on monitor duty until our official presentation wasn't a punishment. Joke's on her, I think Ashley likes playing mission control.

Ready for our day, Ashley and I went downstairs. We found my Dad in the kitchen, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. He had a frown on his face.

"Ashley?" He asked. "Is there anyone from your world named Bloodbath?"

"No," she said with a shake of the head. "Not that I can think of. Why?"

"No reason," he said quickly. "Do you still want to spend the morning at my office?"

"Yeah," she said hesitantly. The truth was, they didn't want her at HQ alone until they'd gotten her tutoring program established. Yesterday, before any of the other Wards got there, she'd gotten bored, wandered off, and ended up chatting with an intern. The good news was that everyone now knew that 'mutie' was considered a major slur where Ashley came from. The bad news was that people knew that because Ashley had taken issue with being asked why she didn't use the name 'Cutie Mutie' if she was planning on playing her cape ID for cuteness and going with a mutant 'theme.'

And now Ashley wasn't allowed on base alone unless she had someone or something to keep her occupied, because that intern was afraid of her now and nobody wanted a repeat of the incident.

"Then you might want to bring something to read or do," Dad said. "It can get pretty boring."

"Okay Mister Hebert," Ashley said. "I'll be right back."

Ashley left back upstairs, and I turned to Dad. "Why did you really ask?"

"The Slaughterhouse 9 were in Chicago a few days ago," Dad explained neutrally. "Not too many casualties this time, according to the paper, but they've got a new member calling himself Bloodbath. The way they describe his power… Seems a bit similar to Ashley."

"Crap. And there's the PR thing this afternoon," the wards were doing a thing at the mall. Meet and greet, sign some photos, and answer some questions. It was supposed to be Cuddlebug and Weaver's 'official' introduction so we expected most of the questions to be about us. "Which means it might come up in the Q&A… You gonna be at the Mall this afternoon."

"Sorry, I can't make it," he said while looking away. "I can take lunch off to drive Ashley to PRT HQ or the afternoon off to be at the event. I can't do both. Alan has the afternoon free though. He's gonna film it for me."

Well, it was more than we'd had together in a good long while, so… Baby steps. It was still uncomfortable to think that Alan knew I was a cape… Well, Sophia did too, after I collapsed, so even if Alan had kept his promise, Emma probably knew…. She hadn't said anything, but…

I terminated the train of thought. I was a hero now. I had a new little sister, and after today I'd be transferring to Arcadia and wouldn't have to deal with her attempts to tear me down and make me hurt.

"I uh... Need to catch the bus if I want to be on time," I said. "I'll talk to you later."

Dad nodded and I went to the front door.

Just as I was getting to the door, Ashley called out to me. "Taylor, wait!"

I turned around to see her quickly approaching the front door. "What?"

She held her hands in front of her chest so that they formed a heart and said "I love you," with a big smile.

I smiled back and patted her on the head before I went on my way.

I don't know what I was expecting. My last day-a half-day with the vocation program-had been completely uneventful. I think part of me was expecting some last prank or something, but the worst that had happened was Julia, Madison's minion, telling me to be careful that my ass didn't eat the rest of me as I left world issues.

As I checked myself out in the mirror in mine and Ashley's room in Wards HQ, I couldn't help but wonder what she was talking about. My new costume, almost identical to Ashley's except white with purple lenses and spider-emblem. And it was made of dyed silk instead of alien slime monster.

I had to say, I looked good in it. I'd put on a bit of muscle ever since I woke up from my spider-venom coma. Which is a sentence I don't think most people would ever find themselves saying or thinking. It wasn't a lot of muscle, but it's more than I ever figured I'd have at this point in my life.

I finished the costume much faster than the first one. In general, controlling and using my spiders- _Latrodectus hebertus_ to use the scientific name they'd been assigned-seemed easier than using most bugs.

Once fully costumed and finished admiring myself, I left for the common room. The only others here were Vista on the couch and Cuddlebug (Dad had dropped her off just before I'd gotten in) on the ceiling above her. Vista was looking up and speaking.

"...Weird with my blood cells," she was saying. "They don't _think_ it's cancer but they wanna do some more tests." I think I chose the worst possible time to walk out. "Also, apparently that burn on my chest is more consistent with gamma rays than any other kind of radiation, but I don't think we've got any research on cosmic ray burns specifically, so I don't know how much that means..."

"...Maybe you're turning into a Hulk?" Cuddlebug said hesitantly. Then she let off a nervous laugh.

"What's that one again?" Vista asked.

"Giant green muscle-person who smashes thing and is the strongest there is," Cuddlebug explained. "Sometimes they're red and can absorb energy."

Vista laughed. "I wish. Then maybe they'd take me seriously."

"Would you like a hug?"

"I'm fine, Cuddlebug," Vista said. "They don't think there's anything wrong, they're just making sure."

"...Okay." Even with Mister Snuggles' voice underlaying hers, the concern and uncertainty in her voice were palpable.

So I climbed up a wall and across the ceiling so that I was sitting upside-down next to her.

"Okay," I said after a moment. "You've got a point. This is fun."

Ashley, seemingly distracted from her concern, giggled and then leaned into me for an upside down hug. She put both arms around me, and I put one around her. This close, I could see that her practicing had extended to her costume. Her eyespots looked like actual lenses.

"So, Weaver," Vista said, still looking up. "They finish the second round of power testing on you yet?"

"Not yet," I answered. "We've got my enhanced physiology figured out. Couple tons lift, four times as flexible as a gymnast, more durable. Faster, jumpier. Not by much, but enough for some low brute and mover ratings." I didn't know the numbers yet, though. "But the spiders are another issue. We know that their silk is at least a dozen times stronger than anything in nature but they're still running chemical tests on their venom and I have to go back and finish the 'how many can you summon at once' test because the guy conducting it puked when I opened up every vent and set them all to maximum production."

Somewhere, wherever it is that the PRT archives information about power mechanics, is a video of me in my underwear and a domino mask opening dozens of vents from all over my body and millions of white and purple widow spiders pouring out of my body for three seconds, then the camera falling to the floor and the lens getting covered in fear-vomit.

"Personally, I don't think I'll ever need to summon that many spiders, but they want to be thorough."

"Yeah, they're like that," Vista admitted. "We spent weeks testing my space-warping before they gave up. I'm pretty sure we didn't get anywhere close to my upper limits."

"Mister Snuggles wants to know what your upper limits are," Cuddlebug asked.

"I have no idea," Vista said. "But I'm pretty sure that if I had to I could fit our whole team in my breastplate and still have room to breathe." That was a mental image I didn't need. "So, Cuddlebug, did your plans to cheat your way into high school work?"

Cuddlebug grumbled.

"What was that?"

"...No."

"She's incredibly advanced in math and science," I explained for her, "apparently because her world's a bit ahead of ours in figuring out how Tinker-Tech works and that trickles down, but she completely flunked social studies. They're setting up a tutoring program for her till she gets caught up."

"...It's not my fault that Dracula was just a book in your universe," Cuddlebug said bitterly.

"...you're kidding, right?" Vista asked.

Cuddlebug shook her head. "He's still around, too. Last I heard he was really upset because Deadpool ran off with a demon lady he wanted to marry."

"Ashley," Vista slowly deadpanned, "everything about your world terrifies me."

It was then that the rest of the Wards started coming in and we started going over the plans for the event at the mall one last time. It was just a recap

Shadow Stalker, who hadn't been able to get into the vocational program(to be fair, I was only in it because I was transferring to Arcadia,) came in just a little bit before we had to leave.

I made a point of keeping myself and Ashley away from her as we did so.

"...And introducing our newest Wards….!" the hype-man working the event announced, "Cuddlebug and Weaver!"

And then Ashley and I fell from the ceiling. Halfway to the floor I flipped in the air and planted my locked feet on the stage they'd set up in an open part of the mall. Ashley made a three-point landing next to me just a moment later, and then sprung to her feet and threw her hands in the air.

The curtain on the stage, which the other Wards had already run through to take their places on the side of the stage, opened slightly and a box… cage… thing full of monarch butterflies backstage was opened up allowing me to have a swarm of them fly out above and circle around the crowd, then fly them into a diamond shape, then a five-pointed star, and then a heart.

The people in the crowd, mostly people here with their kids, applauded, and then I returned the butterflies to whatever the thing they were keeping them in was called.

Then I stepped back and let Cuddlebug take center stage:

She started with a few backflips that I doubt someone her age could do without enhanced reflexes before landing in a handstand, supported by one finger on each hand. Her costume then turned solid gold before shifting through metallic shades of burgundy, bronze, gold again, a sort of dark lime, olive, jade, teal, cerulean, indigo, purple, violet, and fuschia before reverting to her normal costume. She then produced two of her mechanical tentacles which anchored to the stage. She then used them to rotate up so that she was upright and facing the crowd. She flashed a peace sign with her right hand and then slowly lowered herself back down and reabsorbed the tentacles. She bowed and the crowd applauded again.

Ashley came back over by me, and then we went into our prepared lines.

"I'm Weaver, I'm a Thinker and a Master that can control bugs, sense them, and borrow their senses-three people here have lice, you know who you are-" actually, no one did. That was just a bit as part of the act. "I can also stick to walls with my hands and feet and create spiders from nothing." I had one of my special spiders crawl out of a vent hidden on my scalp and then make a show of crawling down my mask over the purple lens of my right eye and then climbing back up into my hair and back in its vent. "I made this costume myself out of their silk."

"I'm Cuddlebug," Ashley said cheerfully. "I like hugs. I'm a Combat-Focal Hybrid Tinker and this," she gestured to herself, "is Mister Snuggles. He's a biomechanical nano suit with an onboard AI bonded directly to my physiology. Wave hello Mister Snuggles."

Cuddlebug then produced a tentacle which waved at the crowd in an exaggerated fashion.

After that, a techie wheeled a long table onto the stage while a few more brought out chairs. Each of us took a seat at the table-Cuddlebug was to my left, with us at the far left, as far from shadow Stalker as possible-while the hype-man came back. "Alright, now the Wards are gonna take some questions and after that, we'll be passing out some photos and you'll get a chance to get some autographs."

He pointed out to a pretty, dark-haired girl that I think I vaguely recognized from school. "Question for Cuddlebug and Weaver? Your costumes are very similar. What's your connection?"

Ashley leaned out of her chair and gave me a hug. I wrapped an arm around her, as was now our habit. "Weaver's my big sister."

This triggered a few people in the audience to go 'aww.'

Our hype-man pointed to a little girl that had a hand raised in the first row. She actually looked to be about Ashley's age. "Cuddlebug? What's your favorite subject in school?"

"I'm really good at science," Ashley admitted. "Einstein's theory of general relativity states that what we think of as gravity is actually the curve of the fabric of-"

"I'm going to cut you off there, Cuddlebug," our hype-man said, "otherwise we'll be here all night. You there, in the back," he pointed to a redhead in the back, next to a man holding a camera in-wait, that was…

"Question for Shadow Stalker," even this far away I could make out Emma's voice. "You were the newest Ward before Cuddlebug and Weaver showed up. How are you getting along with them?"

"I haven't had much contact with _Weaver_ just yet," I didn't like the emphasis that Sophia was placing on my cape name, "but I sparred with Cuddlebug when they were doing power testing. She's got the _instinct_. She needs some work, but I think she's cut out for this."

Our hype-man pointed to a blonde boy near the middle of the third row. "Question for any of the Wards: Do any of you speak any other languages?"

"Cuddlebug can speak a bit of Irish Gaelic," Vista said unprompted. "What was that word you were explaining to me the other day?" she said looking down the table to Ashley.

"...Soith," Ashley said after a moment.

"Use it in a sentence," Vista prompted.

"Shadow Stalker is a soith," Ashley said with a giggle. Shadow Stalker leaned forward and looked down at us but didn't say anything. I'd have to ask Ashley what 'soith' meant later.

It went on like that for a little bit. We, the Wards, answered questions about our favorite colors, movies, books, songs(which led to an anecdote about how Cuddlebug preferred the late career covers that the Earth 'Aleph' version of Johnny Cash did, lamenting that the Earth Bet version got kicked to death by an ostrich before he could do them,) until a grown man with red hair and a press pass forced his way to the front of the crowd and spoke up unprompted. "Nathan Eastman, Brockton Enquirer. What do the Wards have to say about the incident at Brockton Central on April 14th? Particularly regarding the death of Panacea."

Ashley trembled. Luckily we'd never stopped hugging and I was able to give her a comforting squeeze.

Aegis was the one to respond, with a firm "No comment."

Eastman apparently wasn't prepared to take no for an answer, however, and physically climbed up onto the stage. "Come on now, the people have a right to know."

This prompted Aegis to fly out of his chair, slowly hover over to Eastman, pick him up by the shoulders (prompting Eastman, in turn, to grab onto Aegis's arms,) and gently set him down just off stage… Right next to one of the PRT agents who was working security for the event. "We politely request that the public stays off the stage during the Q&A," he said professionally. The agent then escorted Eastman away.

Our hype-man seemed a bit nervous now. "So, I think we have time for one more-"

He was cut off by a puff of smoke in the middle of the stage. The smoke cleared, revealing a woman in a tuxedo with a black hooded cape had appeared in the middle of the stage. I couldn't see her face, as her back was too us.

"Sorry to interrupt," she shouted sternly, "but this PR event has to end early becuase of an emergency. The mall needs to evacuate. Now."

"Oh," came a voice. A familiar voice. _my_ voice, but distorted. Like a rather deep voice was speaking under it and then it'd been recorded and run through an echo chamber. That voice came from a man who'd been standing there with his wife and daughter in the front row.

And then they-and five people near them besides-all flickered at once and they were replaced with what I could only describe as skeletons carved crudely from crystal.

Most of them were short things, maybe two feet tall, with roundish heads with gaping holes where the face should be, but the man, his wife, and kid were most distinct.

The kid was short, maybe the size of a 12-year-old, with an odd orange and blue crystal pattern that vaguely resembled the kind of dress that a little girl might wear in a show like _Little House on the Prairie_. Her crystal skull-like face was framed by an inky black something that resembled sausage curled hair.

The wife crystal skeleton was feminine shaped, had red crystals in such a way that resembled a blood red robe with a crystal hood… But some of the crystals formed a white cross on her chest.

And the man who'd had a distorted version of my voice was my original costume, in white, but carved from crystal and with the mandibles of my mask framing the skull-face's jaw, and with an ugly black spider-emblem on the chest. The same Inky Blackness from the child's hair formed my long, dark locks.

"But we were going to ask if Cuddlebug was ready to join the New Poison Hive," evil crystal me finished.


	19. Chapter 14

**Snuggle the Symbiote**

Vista was on her A-game. As soon as the evil crystal version of me spoke she immediately leaped up and stretched the floor around the crystal creatures, adding a few feet between them and the stage and them and the rest of the crowd.

"Everyone not in a costume needs to get out of here now!" she shouted, and that was all that was needed to get the civilians to start evacuating.

Unfortunately, the few feet she'd given us weren't enough to buy us more than a few seconds. By the time I stood and got back from behind the table, the crystal creatures were already up on stage.

The small one in the crystal dress with the sausage curls was right in front of me. Tendrils of slime emerged from her back and formed a dozen slim tentacles in orange and blue tipped with scalpels, scissors, tongs, and bone saws.

...fuck.

"Momma-Skitter says I can take you apart to see how you tick," the crystal Bonesaw said. "Just as soon as we get my new little sister."

So I did the only logical thing someone could do when faced with a slime and crystal copy of one of the world's most dangerous and prolific serial killers intent on doing something horrible to my foster sister and then me.

I lifted up my mask and opened the hidden vents in my throat so that I could vomit spiders on her.

Apparently, crystal Bonesaw had enhanced reflexes, however, as she was able to backflip off the stage, land in the crowd and grab a fleeing civilian man all in the time it took the three dozen spiders I'd coughed up to hit the floor.

The crystal Bonesaw's tendrils lashed at the man only to stop short as rings of red energy materialize out of nowhere and pinned all of the psychotic crystal child's limbs, tendrils included, were forced tight to her body.

The man then continued fleeing.

It was then that I took a second to survey my surroundings:

The red one was on the ground, similarly bound, with its right arm turned into a crystal and slime ax, not a foot from where Gallant was standing.

Evil crystal me was still where she'd been the whole time. She stood while bound, and spiders made of black slime started crawling out of her joints and rushing the stage. I sent the spiders I already had to go and fight hers and spawned more as backup becuase she had more. As my spiders and hers killed each other, I took note that PRT security had already killed four of the small ones with weird heads. At least, I assumed they were dead. They were on the ground, not moving and something green was leaking out of places where the crystal had been hit with batons.

I swiveled, looking for the fifth, to find Cuddlebug staring at a beautiful Asian woman.

Her eye lenses were wide. "...Mommy?" She reached out to touch the woman's outstretched hand.

And then a gunshot rang out, the woman fell to the ground, Cuddlebug screamed, and then the woman vanished and was replaced with a tiny crystal thing with a huge hole blown clean through its head.

I turned to where the shot had come from and saw the woman with the cape and tux. From this angle, I could see that she had a green, feathered domino mask that obscured the entire top half of her face. Her left hand was held up with her fingers held in something close to rocker horns. The other held a comically large handgun.

I asked the only question that came to mind: "What the fuck is going on?"

"In a minute," was lady Tux-and-Mask's only reply. She grabbed the hem of her cape and pulled it around herself. The cape spiraled around her and she vanished.

She then immediately reappeared behind Cuddlebug and grabbed her. I stepped forward, but they'd already vanished in a massive puff of smoke.

"That bitch! That-!"

 _"Hey, I can hear you,"_ the woman's voice came from the earpiece sewn into my mask. _"All I did was teleport Cuddlebug to the Ward's console room where she's not at risk of being captured by people that literally want to eat her to get her powers."_

"What the shit is wrong with her reality!?" I could hear Vista shout.

 _"Trust me, Earth Bet's not much better, but you'll learn that later,"_ the woman continued. _"Also, anyone who hasn't been evacuated yet just heard you announce that_ someone _isn't from this reality, so..."_

"Damn it," was Vista's response.

 _"So, to get everyone caught up: I'm Ms. Mystic, Sorceress Supreme of Earth in the Bet Reality and founding member of the Earth Bet branch of The Avengers. You haven't heard of any of that because it hasn't happened yet, I'm from the future."_

"Yeah, right," Shadow Stalker scoffed.

 _"Your stepfather's head is torn out of every picture you have of your family."_

"How-?"

 _"It comes up in group therapy. Yes, you end up in group therapy. No, it doesn't help very much. You're an irreparable mess."_

"Why you little-"

 _"The Poisons are from the future too,"_ Ms. Mystic interrupted.

I shed a few more spiders to join the battle against Evil crystal me's while Aegis spoke up.

"Poisons. New Poison Hive," our leader began, "and now you're from the Future. Please start explaining."

"And put Cuddlebug on the line," I added.

 _"I'm fine,"_ Cuddlebug's voice came over the coms. She didn't sound like she was doing so hot. _"Future Tattletale just bamfed us into the console room."_

 _"How did you-?"_

 _"You smell exactly like Tattletale and sound like an older Tattletale,"_ Cuddlebug explained.

 _"...Well, I need to yell at big-you when I get home."_

"So we're getting mission control from a crook," Clockblocker observed. "Yay," he finished flatly.

 _"Look, the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak aren't going to hold if I'm not there to maintain the spell and the Protectorate won't be there for-"_

There came a sound. A sickening sound, the shearing of metal combined with the crunch of bone

I twisted my head to find that the red one had just punched Gallant in the knee. He was on the ground but still managed to fire a blast into her chest as she was pushing herself up.

 _"And Poison Panacea just broke Gallant's leg, which means he's about to find out that the Poisons aren't vulnerable to emotion effects because they're all a bunch of raging sociopaths. Stay alive until help gets there, I'll have a more in-depth explanation later. Ms. Mystic out."_

My doppelganger was content to stand still and shed spiders, so I continued to do the same.

Poison Panacea reformed her ax and made to swing down at the prone Gallant, only for the stage to shrink a few feet.

Vista leaped through the compressed air and swung her baton down onto Poison Panacea, who proceeded to not react to the blow at all.

Instead, she turned her head to Vista. "Seriously? 'Little V?' The youngest and most pathetic Ward? Do you honestly think you can defeat me? Panacea was one of the most powerful and versatile bio-manipulators on the planet. She was wearing an instance of Carnage when I devoured her. You're basically an ant, except no, because Love can make use of ants."

Vista opened her mouth to say something but instead of words she suddenly gasped and fell to her knees and… I didn't know it was physically possible to go from nothing to sweating bullets in just a second.

Clockblocker ran across the stage, reaching for Poison Panacea… Only to trip as his feet were glued to the floor by a thwip of grey goo. I turned around in time to see Poison Bonesaw leaping back onto the stage.

"You know, the more people who try to stop Mama-Panpan from killing the boy, the more people she's gonna kill."

Aegis went for Poison Panacea while Browbeat went for Poison Bonesaw. I had to look away, however, because my spiders noticed that my double's feet were starting to move and I had to return my attention to her.

"You should just run now," she said calmly, looking at me. "You're not a match for me. You're not a match for Love. You're not a match for the kid. You don't have a Klyntar, little Totem. We promised Bonesaw she could vivisect you if she caught you, but only if she caught you. We only want the hybrid symbiote and its host. There's no reason you need to die." She cocked her head to the side. "Just run. There's an ex-Slaughterhouse Nine here and you're clearly outmatched. No one would ever blame you."

I looked my doppelganger dead in the eyes. "You're asking me to run away, let my new teammates die, and let you kidnap and eat a little girl who looks up to me. Just who the _hell_ do you think I am?"

She'd stopped shedding spiders and mine overwhelmed and finished off her swarm. I set them to rush the stang to swarm Poison Panacea and Poison Bonesaw, where they were quickly crushed by the goo inside the poisons, while I jumped for my crystal copy and threw a punch.

Which she caught. Easily.

She squeezed down on my fist and I felt my bones shatter.

"You foolish child. Skitter was just as foolish, all of your impulse control issues aggravated ten times over by Venom. It was a match made in Heaven, the two of them. Venom's power combined with your senses and mind, but Skitter just had to keep punching above her threat level." She formed her other hand into long, curved blade of slime with a white-crystal at the tip. "And it just got worse when she was joined by Panacea and Bonesaw. When Venom's offspring found it's way back to its parent and Panacea lobotomized it and bound it to her will. When it budded and Bonesaw gained the power of Toxin..." She made a show of pulling her arm back. She took a good long time. "And that arrogance led to them being consumed, and now that power and intellect belong to the New Hive where it can be used properly."

"Do you know you have a healing factor yet?" She changed the subject all of a sudden. "As I understand it, it's from the traces of regenerative mutant in the mutate whose venom empowered you. It's slow, but you'll live through me carving out your spleen and Love and I won't have broken our promise."

She started to swing only to stop and was suddenly replaced with Emma, an expression of shock and betrayal on her face.

Just in time for a crossbow bolt full of some black liquid to hit her square in the forehead.

She let go of my hand. And fell to the ground. She seemed dead, and I could hear Shadow Stalker scream.

"What!? No, no... I didn't, how? I..."

And then 'Emma' reached up, a black cord of slime launching from her wrist with a thwip. She pulled, and Shadow Stalker was pulled from her feet to land face down at mine.

My doppelganger reverted to her true form and flipped to her feet in an instant.

And then she laughed. A cold laugh. A mirthless laugh. "You know, it's funny: I've been to eight Earth Bets, this one included, and she _always_ falls for that trick. Even when she knows it's just an illusion. Who'd think that such a simpleminded psychopath would have such a soft spot for a pathetic, traitorous worm."

"Eees strnger dan oo, bit-th," Shadow Stalker mumbled from the floor. There was blood leaking out from the side of her mask.

"Now, we're going to need one of you alive so-"

And then the temperature in the room went up a couple of degrees while Vista let out a blood-curdling scream.

And then, a second later, the Poison Panacea and Poison Bonesaw impacted the far wall. The apparent elder had an arm burned off, the younger a leg.

And then the Protectorate finally got here. Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Dauntless, and Triumph.

My doppelganger dodged a bullet from a green sniper rifle and an arc from Dauntless's lance and rapidly back stepped away from Shadow Stalker and I.

And then a puff of smoke erupted on her shoulder. I could smell rotten eggs, and then the puff of smoke happened again, releasing more rotten egg smell.

I was able to speed up the cloud's dispersal with a wave of my non-broken hand, the smoke clearing enough to show my copy, now with a small devil made of dark blue crystal on her shoulder, grabbing the other two, and then they vanished in one last massive burst of smoke.

I turned around. To see the damage.

Aegis was holding his right arm with his left because his right arm wasn't attached to him anymore. Browbeat was… Honestly, he seemed fine but there was a bloody gash along his side. Clockblocker and Kid Win seemed fine, but Vista…

Vista was kneeling, breathing heavily, and her costume, soaked through with sweat, seemed… Looser, for lack of a better word.

And her skin was the color of freshly spilled blood, with her eyes glowing yellow bright enough to see through her visor.

"I don't feel so good."


	20. Chapter 15

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

"So let me get this straight," I said, "In an alternate universe, I was a supervillain who was somehow dating Panacea. Together we killed all the slaughterhouse nine, except Bonesaw who just kind of randomly went good, Panacea and I adopted her despite only being six years older than her tops, all three of us had symbiotes like Ashley's, and then we got eaten by crystal monsters?"

"I'm gonna be honest," Clockblocker added, "that sounds like the plot of a really bad cape-fic."

Twenty minutes after getting back to base, we were sitting around a table in a conference room. Aegis had had his arm sewn back on. Shadow Stalker—Sophia—was sitting unmasked with a cast on her broken nose.

Kid Win and Clockblocker were present, unharmed.

Gallant and Browbeat were still in the infirmary. Gallant's leg was broken and he couldn't walk, and the gash on Brockbeat's side was incredibly nasty and was still being stitched

Missy was quarantined until they could figure out why she was red with black lips, yellow eyes, slightly reddened hair, a year or two younger than she was this morning, and radioactive.

My own hand was bandaged. They'd actually had to rebreak one of my fingers. My counterpart had been right about me having a healing factor, so the bandages served mostly to make sure my bones healed right.

And Cuddlebug was sitting on my lap and refusing to let go of me. I let her, my good arm wrapped around her because she very clearly wasn't in a good place right now.

Armsmaster himself was supervising this meeting.

And Tattletale—Ms. Mystic—stood, back against the wall, at the head of the room.

"Yeah," she said, "that's the gist of it. It was a weird dimension. So," she continued, "the Poisons are a species of pathetic weaklings at the bottom of the food chain, but they discovered by accident that touching a klyntar symbiote bound to a host caused them to absorb them both, gaining their memories and powers. They went to war with a bunch of people from across the multiverse bound to their world's version of a Klyntar called venom. The poisons lost that war—"

"The poisons lost a war to the venoms?" Clockblocker interrupted.

"Yes, the Poisons lost to the Venoms," Ms. Mystic confirmed. "However, they survived, as that was only a small portion of the Hive. Later on, the vast majority of the species invaded Earth 616—which is very similar to but not the same as Cuddlebug's home reality of Earth 727—and forced a bunch of heroes to bond to symbiotes so they could eat them. Almost all the A-Listers. Their Queen was killed by that world's Marvel Girl—Jean Grey, Cuddlebug can explain her later—and the psychic backlash killed most of the other poisons in the multiverse.

"Bu~ut," she continued with a wave of her hand, "the Poison Skitter's core powers—controlling and administrating other organisms—allowed her to serve as a new hub for the hive mind, but she lacks the Queen's reproductive abilities. She needs the Bonesaw and the Panacea poisons to make new poisons artificially and artificial ones aren't that bright. It'll take them a few days to replenish their numbers after killing all the grunts this afternoon."

It was at this point that Armsmaster spoke up. "That's all good to know, but you've given us very little reason to believe that any of this is true."

"You have a lie detector in your helmet, don't you?" Ms. Mystic quipped back. "Has anything I said been a lie?"

"Nothing has registered as a lie, no," Armsmaster admitted, "But you've already been identified as a known criminal and, as a thinker, it's entirely possible that you've identified my lie-detector ahead of time and deduced a workaround. The knowledge of how to beat lie detectors is relatively common and not even mine is absolutely perfect. Not to mention… I can't believe I'm about to say this..." He sighed. "Since you're apparently some kind of sorcerer, everything about this afternoon could be completely manufactured with some… spell."

"What possible motive could I have for that, _Colin?_ " The sorceress from the future leaned forward. Armsmaster's name was Colin? He frowned. "Known criminal? Well from my perspective that was years ago and you _clearly_ have no problem with working with _former_ criminals." She pointed to Sophia. "She crucified a guy and has at least two manslaughters to her name. Nothing that 'Tattletale' did or will do comes close to that kind of fucked up."

I was completely unsurprised by the possibility of this being the case. Sophia glared at Ms. Mystic, who went on. "Also, you could lock me up until you're sure but then people would die because there _is_ a hostile entity with the powers and personality of Bonesaw being assisted by an evil Panacea and I'm the one telling you how to stop them."

"...don't wanna fight an evil Panacea," Cuddlebug mumbled.

"That reminds me," Ms. Mystic added with a gesture to Cuddlebug. "She doesn't go into the field until this blows over. She's the one they want. Sequestering her in Wards HQ would be best, but she won't stay put in so confined a space now that she can actually just, you know, get up and walk whenever she wants."

I held Ashley tighter. "Why are they after her?"

"Symbiotes get stronger over time as they adapt to circumstances and the DNA they're exposed to," Ms. Mystic explained. "And Cuddlebug's partner is a whos-who of major badasses from where she's from. I'm serious, I keep looking back at her and being surprised at how weak and tiny she is right now."

"Tiny?" Cuddlebug asked. She was still mumbling and I was pretty sure she wasn't okay.

"By the time you turn sixteen, you'll be six-foot-four with six-pack abs."

"...An-and that's good?"

"Some teenage boys from back home think so, but two-of-three odds say they're gonna be disappointed."

"...Oh-kay?"

"I'm not gonna bore you with the insignificant details," the sorceress continued, "but the Poisons showed up a few months ago—from my perspective—trying to get Cuddlebug. After several months and countless dead Poisons, it's an obsession for them at this point. I don't know _how_ they traveled time, exactly, though I've got a theory, but there's something that I know but they don't."

"...Are you going to make us ask what?" Kid Win asked.

"I remember all of this happening," Tattletale explained. "So this is a time-loop, not multiverse theory. I'm sure everyone here has seen enough movies to know how that all works so I won't explain it. As long as you all follow my instructions exactly, we can close the loop and the new Poison Hive dies here. First, that new homeless healer that just got recruited into the wards? The one Piggot will have been told will be transferred in within the week this morning? Gonna be really useful. I'll have private instructions for how later."

She reached into her cape and pulled out a briefcase. I'm fairly certain that it couldn't have possibly fit under there without us noticing.

"Now, Gremlin—a teammate of mine in the future. You'll meet her soon enough—has Tinker abilities and a vested interest in having counter-measures for Bone-tech and other hostile wet-tinker creations." Ms. Mystic set the briefcase on the table and opened it.

And then Cuddlebug leaped from my lap and was clinging to the ceiling. A second later I could see that the briefcase was full of filled syringes. "These are compound vaccines for most of the biological agents we know of that Posionsaw or Poisoncea might use. Armsmaster, randomly select three syringes. That'll be enough for every test you can think of to verify that it's safe. Take any more and there won't be enough for all of the Wards—minus the new girl coming in, she's already immune because of her powers—and yes, that's including Gallant. He's gonna be back on his feet before this dealt with, as well as the local Protectorate. Don't bother sending PRT troopers out as anything more than crowd control and traffic cops, they're just mulch against the Poisons."

Aegis was looking up at the ceiling where Cuddlebug was still clinging. "Cuddlebug? Are you afraid of needles?"

" _No._ " Cuddlebug quickly denied.

"Yes, she is," Ms. Mystic corrected. "Considering the kind of shit she went through, it makes sense. And sorry, kid, but you never really get over it. At least not by the time I'm from." She reached behind her back and pulled out two inhalers. "Gremlin has you covered though. These are aerosolized versions of the vaccine. Pick one, and I'll take it to prove it's safe," she said while holding up both hands.

Cuddlebug took a minute to respond. "...How do I know you didn't poison both of them with something that you're immune to?"

...And then Ms. Mystic groaned. "I hate that goddamn movie. Every sixth Saturday when it's Cuddlebug's turn to pick the movie we watch that movie. I've seen the Bet, Aleph, and 727 versions, the Bet remake with an All Case-53 cast, in five different languages each. And every time Cuddlebug and Gremlin take up the entire couch." She set the inhalers down on the table and double facepalmed. "Look. I'm not the Dread Pirate Roberts. There's no iocane powder anywhere near any of the vaccines. Death is not on the line, and I'm gonna be honest between your chem resistance and your symbiote you're probably immune to anything I could taint this with."

Cuddlebug seemed to be distracted by the rant. "...We have a movie night in the future?"

"Yes. We all live together in a god-damn mansion," the sorceress ranted. "It's like a fucking fairy tale. Just pick an inhaler."

Looking up, I could see Cuddlebug' eye lenses narrow. "Give me both of them." She swung down and around so that she was suspended from the ceiling, facing Ms. Mystic, from only her feet.

Ms. Mystic tossed both inhalers to Cuddlebug, who produced two of her tentacles and then did a weird four-armed upside-down juggling motion. She then tossed one back to Ms. Mystic.

I couldn't see her eyes well through her mask, but I could have sworn that Ms. Mystic was rolling them. She removed the cap from the inhaler's mouthpiece, stuck it in her mouth, and pressed the button.

"See," she said. "Harmless."

Cuddlebug waited another minute, sniffed the inhaler, and then took it.

"So.. This is a lot more frustrating than I expected," Ms. Mystic said. "I'll be back, but I'm gonna go put some protective wards on some places, warn a couple of people about a couple of things, and in general tie off some spare loose ends. Stuff that's less frustrating. I'll be back in about two hours and when I'm here I'll need to meet up with the protectorate and—oh. Before I forget," she said in sudden remembrance, "you can let Vista out of quarantine. The radiation she's letting of is harmless because of reasons and the worst that'll happen is that she's gonna be moody for a while because she'll be stuck like this for a couple of weeks. She's basically a living metaphor for her own psychological issues right now, Cuddlebug can explain it, bye now."

And then she vanished in a burst of sweet-smelling smoke.

"Once more," Armsmaster said, "I can't believe I'm saying this: Cuddlebug. How often do time travelers from the future come back in time to solve problems like this?"

"Half of the X-Men I know of are time-travelers from possible futures who got stuck in the present because multiverse theory," Ashley said. She wasn't as excited as she normally was when explaining Cape stuff from her world. She didn't elaborate on what that meant and instead asked, "so, who is Bonesaw?"

Aegis leaned over, "have you ever seen a Frankenstein movie?"

"...Movie?"

Before anyone could ask if she was serious, Armsmaster spoke up. "Bonesaw, real name Riley Grace Davis, is a wet-tinker—a Tinker specializing in biology—with a wide range of skills including advanced surgery, the creation of viral, bacterial, parasitic, and prionic biological weapons; advanced, cybernetics; crude-robots that imitate animal movement, and the reanimation of dead flesh. She also seems to have a sub-specialty in powers and has dabbled in chemical engineering and computer science having demonstrated great skill in both regards."

"She's one of the core members of the Slaughterhouse Nine," he continued, "a band of empowered spree-killers, and has been since her debut six years past. She's somewhere in the ten to twelve range and her first known victims were her mother, father, elder brother, and pet dog. However, there are some who question her official profile as the bodies of her family and a handful of other early victims show a radically different pattern than latter victims and it's known that other members of the Slaughterhouse Nine were present in her home the night of the first killings. We'll probably never know for sure, however, as it would require an in-depth psychological examination and she's been deemed too dangerous to capture alive."

"...That's sad," Cuddlebug said without emotion.

"Are we done now?" I asked. "I mean, I'm not even sure why we were here in the first place beyond 'the wizard said so' and I should really go warn my dad if the Poisons are going after Cuddlebug."

"A plainclothes agent has already been dispatched to escort your father to a safe house," Armsmaster replied. "Standard procedure when we have reason to suspect that a Ward's identity is compromised and with one of the Poison's apparently being an alternate version of yourself we felt that it was a safe assumption that they knew who you are. You'll be able to go and see him in a few hours. And yes," he admitted. "I think it's alright to dismiss you for now."

As we filed out, Clockblocker pulled Cuddlebug and I aside. "Hey, kid," he said to Cuddlebug, "don't sweat about being afraid of needles. Lots of people hate them, it's nothing to be ashamed of." We went our separate ways without Cuddlebug replying.

If Dad was in a safe house then there was no reason for me to go home. Instead, I took Ashley back to our room in Ward's HQ.

As soon as we were in our room, her mask liquefied and receded back inside her body. I was never going to get used to gold and blue slime oozing in and out of her nose, mouth, and around her eye sockets. She…

"Ashley? Are you okay?" I'm pretty sure I already knew the answer.

"I saw my Mommy get shot again today," she said very quietly. "I know it was just a trick, but… I'm so sick of seeing people get shot."

I pulled her into a hug so that her head was on my shoulder just as she started to cry.


	21. Chapter 16

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

After she'd gotten all of the tears out of her system, Ashley had gone into the girls' locker room here in Wards HQ to wash up. I wasn't sure where the other Wards were, except for the ones in the infirmary.

So with nothing else to do I reclined on the couch in the common room and revisited a book I'd read with my mother almost six years ago. She'd taught a class on it, one I'd sat in on at the time. From my more mature current perspective and greater understanding of the world, I kind of wondered why my mom let me read this when I was ten.

The masks on buzzer went on. My mask was kind of a pain to put on quickly, so I pushed my hair over in front of my face.

Of course, it turned out that it was just some of the other Wards coming in, so I needn't have bothered even with that.

Vista, still red, still smaller than she was this morning, and with her costume clinging to her from the dried sweat was the first one I could see. "Anyone in the girls' showers?" she asked.

"Cuddlebug's in there," I replied.

"Well, she can deal," she squeaked bitterly and sulked down the hall.

As she did that, Aegis helped a boy with his leg in a cast make his way to a chair.

"Need anything?" Our leader asked as he set who I presumed was Gallant down.

"No. I'll be fine," the young man said.

"Okay, well, I'll be in my room finishing some paperwork," Aegis finished and left, leaving me with Gallant.

I sat up and looked over to him. "How are you doing?"

"Well, the painkillers that Dr. Landis gave me kicked in about five minutes ago, so right now I'm feeling great," he joked. "Mostly I'm just waiting for them to call my parents and confirm a cover story so they can smuggle me back home," he said more seriously. "Kind of a public figure, so if my leg's broken at the same time as Gallant's it's a bit suspicious."

I got a better look at his face. He was wearing a domino mask to conceal his identity, as he was out of costume, but something about his jawline and complexion was vaguely familiar.

And then I remembered that he called Panacea his 'girlfriend's sister.' "Dean Stansfield?"

"Yeah," he said. "Surprised?"'

"Not really," I said. "I never really put much thought into who anyone was under their masks."

"Fair enough," he replied.

A thought occurred to me. "So, awkward question: The evil Panacea was trying to kill you specifically. Um… Why?"

"Well," He began slowly, "without giving away some things I'm not entitled to share, Amelia… She had issues. I can't turn my powers off, I can't not notice it. I genuinely think on some level that she resented me for taking her sister away… Take that and remove all morals, and..." He sighed. "I wanted to… Well, she's not hurting anymore."

Ashley had told me about the run-in with Brandish. "How is Glory Girl doing?"

"I haven't spoken to her since… Haven't seen her at school much, either." He looked away. "Honestly, I'm a little worried."

I grunted. "I'm sorry. I don't know what to say, I'm really not good at..."

"Prolonged social interaction?" He answered. I nodded. "Yeah. Even when you know what to say it can be hard. My parents want me to get involved with the family business and run in their social circles… Look, it's hard to hold a conversation with someone when you're at a charity event and you don't even need emotion-sensing powers to know that he doesn't give a damn about the cause."

"Working class," I quipped. "I'm sure that's frustrating, but I can't relate. The closest thing is well, teachers at Winslow don't care about their students' well being."

"Yeah, I heard about that," he said. "Back in January, there was talk about doing a crisis point for some girl that got shoved in a locker full of something they needed to call a hazmat team to clean up and left there for an hour or so. Ultimately they didn't because the girl was in the psych ward for a week and after that, they assumed she didn't… Uh, Weaver? Are you okay?"

Crisis points were cases where Heroes—usually PRT affiliated but sometimes from allied groups—visited a kid or teen who had a _really_ bad day in the hospital, partly as a "brighten the day to help them get better" thing and partly to see if they'd gotten powers. Gallant had probably noticed that my mood had been soured by the reminder of the really bad day I had back in January. "Whoever decided that she didn't trigger is an idiot."

"Oh," he said. "Sorry."

"So, you know mine," I said." How about yours?"

He grimaced. "I'll be honest, I got off lucky compared to most. I drank something I probably shouldn't have, had a bad reaction, and when I got over it I could sense emotions."

I hummed. I had no idea what else to say, but then Ashley came down the hall. She was in full Cuddlebug costume, but her hair was loose and visibly still damp. "Hey," she said, and then sat on the couch next to me. I sat up more to make room.

"Hey," I said back. "Feel better?"

"A little," she replied. "Gallant, are you okay?"

"Yeah," he said. "It was a nice clean break. They set it without a problem. Just gotta hang out till I can go home and rest for a bit. And it's Dean when I'm out of costume."

"Okay, Dean. I'm Ashley." She made her mask move back and… God, that's still creepy.

"So, what were you talking about?" She asked.

"Comparing origin stories," I said offhand.

"Oh, well, I'm a mutant so I don't really have an origin story," Ashley said. "It's genetic. My family had some screening done when my powers first came in." She waved her hand. "I get it from my dad, he had it latently. He got it from Grandpa Patrick and Grandpa Patrick thinks he got it from my Great Grandma because my Great Great Grandpa Slade had a mark exactly like this weird birthmark I've got.."

"Did great-grandpa Slade have powers like yours?" I asked.

"I don't know," Ashley said with a shrug. "He was long dead by the time I was born. All I know is that he was the bastard son of an Englishman and that he'd start ranting about Egyptians when he got drunk." She paused for a minute. "I _think_ he meant Gypsies. That was back when they still thought that Romani people came from Egypt." She paused again. "Actually, now that I think about it, if he could get drunk he probably didn't have my powers."

"Your chemical resistance works on alcohol?" Dean asked uncertainly. Honestly, I wasn't sure I wanted to know why either.

"My chemical resistance works on everything," Ashley answered. "We did a lot of testing to see what medication would and wouldn't work on me. Doctor Tam even gave me a shot of whiskey once just to see if it would do anything. It tasted nasty and it never made it to my blood."

"So…" I began, "does anything work?"

"Strong opium drugs take the edge off of little pains, but they can't give a little kid morphine for the headache that comes with a sinus infection even if it's the only thing that works," she explained. "Enough horse tranquilizer to kill three men makes me a little drowsy, and vaccines work fine but we never found any, you know, get-better-faster medicine that worked. The only useful thing we ever learned from the testing was that I was ' _technically_ producing large amounts of normal hormones and then the molecules in them were rearranging themselves into stronger hormones."

"How is that useful?" Dean asked.

"Because if it's molecule manipulation," Ashley said, "there's a chance that I could get a Secondary Mutation that lets me _control it_ and then I could make myself not weak and sick all the time." She sighed. "My doctor thought I might secondary mutate on my own since my mutation came in way early for no apparent reason, but just in case he said he was gonna write to Doctor McCoy but that was around the time he was working with the Inhumans to try and cure M-Pox and then… Then the Sapien League burned down the clinic and we had to start looking for another doctor. Then I got kidnapped and spent a year being harvested to make Mutant Growth Hormone."

"I'm gonna take a wild guess," I deadpanned, "the Sapien League are domestic terrorists?"

"Anti-Mutant hate group," Ashley confirmed. "The clinic openly catered to mutant patients, so..." she sighed again.

"And Mister Snuggles' origin story is that his people invaded Earth, his parent got captured by the same people who kidnapped me, they were experimented on, he was born in captivity, also experimented on, then when the clones got loose he escaped, found me, we bonded, and he decided to help me."

Vista came out into the common room. She'd replaced her costume with some sweats that didn't fit right. The top was a little loose and the pull-string on the pants was pulled out as far as it went, tied in a knot, and then twisted around her waist as a belt.

"Hey, Missy?" Ashley asked. "How are you doing?"

"Everything is slightly too big and I hate the sound of my own voice," she replied. "Also, I'm a fucking tomato."

She plopped down on the floor between the couch and Dean's chair. "So what are we talking about?"

"Sharing origin stories," Ashley said.

"My parents are raging, bitter, assholic psychos who absolutely loathe each other and the judge who handled the divorce case was fucking retarded," Missy said in one breath. "Done."

"Oh...Okay," Ashley said.

"I'm gonna get home after they figure this out and the house will have been remodeled five times," Missy continued despite having claimed to have been done. "I'll be lucky if I'm in the same bedroom. That's the upside, I guess, that I don't have to deal with that shit for a while."

"...Would you like a hug?" Ashley asked while leaning forward.

"No, I'd like emancipation, a restraining order keeping both my parents a state away from myself and each other, to look my age, and to not be a fucking tomato!" Missy had started calmly but finished with an outburst that made Ashley recoil.

"You're not normally this open about your home life," Dean observed. Is that what Ms. Mystic meant when she said that Vista would be a living metaphor for her own issues? Kind of a shitty metaphor, she just comes out and says it.

"Why wouldn't I be!" Missy snapped as she jumped to her feet. "It's just another example of everything-nobody respects me, nobody cares about what I want or need. Not my parents, not the courts, not the PRT, and especially not Ms. Piggy! Even this," she gestured down to herself. "Nobody asked how I was feeling when I got to the infirmary, they just locked me in the emergency hazard room. I start to feel better and they let me out… But do I get a 'feeling okay?' or 'hey, take the rest of the day off and get some rest?' No! I've gotta go to power testing in less than an hour to see how the blasts I pulled out against the crystal creeps… They don't respect me, they don't respect any of us! We're just means to an end. Powers on legs."

"I respect you," Ashley said quietly. "Are you sure you wouldn't like a hug?"

"...Fine," Missy said after a moment.

Ashley sprung up and hugged Missy in one fluid motion. Missy slowly calmed down over the course of a minute. "Okay," she said, "you can let go now."

"No," Ashley said sternly, "you're warm."

This triggered Missy to start laughing uncontrollably.

I smiled. The incident with the Poisons had been rough, and they were still a threat to deal with, but for a few minutes, we were just hanging out and relaxing. Maybe bonding?

Everything had calmed down, Missy had joined Ashley when she returned to the couch, and then she spoke up. "So, Ashley, I've gotta ask… What's with the tattoo?"

"...I uh, I don't have a tattoo." Ashley denied. She sounded confused.

"That red pattern on your back? Between your shoulders?"

"Oh, that's a birthmark," Ashley said in understanding.

"...But it's red," Missy said slowly with her head cocked.

"Yeah," Ashely said. "Birthmarks can be red."

"But it's a symmetrical pattern," Missy countered. "Like, I only saw it for a second but I saw triangles around an oval or something."

"Well, it's a birthmark," Ashley said with certainty. "It's been there as long as I can remember" She laughed. "Seriously, who would get a tattoo for a little kid?"

"That's why I asked about it!"

This prompted Ashley to start giggling.

"So, it's gonna be a couple of hours before I can go see my Dad in the safe house," I started. "If you'd like, Vista, Cuddlebug and I could hang out while you're power testing… If uh, Dean doesn't mind being alone for a bit."

"I'll probably be here all night," Dean said. "I'll be fine for a little bit."

"Yeah," Vista said. "That'd be nice."


	22. Interlude 5(Mike)

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

"...And now I get weird feelings when I think about my memories of Klara," the newest Undersider finished.

He was sitting on a couch, next to Regent, or Alec as he was called out of costume. Other than Tattletale, or Lisa, off in her room, they were the only ones currently in the loft.

"Look, Mike," Alec said slowly and deliberately, "I only asked how you were doing as a formality. I didn't want your entire life story…" There was a beat. "So, like, as far as you're concerned you basically went to bed a girl and woke up a boy. Did that by itself feel weird, or..."

"Not as much as you'd think," Mike replied. "Like, I think it's becuase this me was born a boy instead of the real Molly getting turned into a boy, but I was really more concerned with finding pants and not getting hit by the other clones. But, I thought you didn't want my life story?"

"I'm just curious, is all," Alec dismissed. "So, you any good at videogames?"

"Do you have a Nintendo Wii?"

"Uh, I don't know how things went in your universe, but Nintendo shut down after Kyushu tanked Japan's economy. I've got a Reality and a bootleg conversion of an Aleph game called Goldeneye but if you pick Oddjob I'll stab y—"

Alec was interrupted by a loud, massive 'BAMF!' of smoke and the smell of rotten eggs.

The smoke made Mike start coughing. Enough that it actually started to hurt for a second. By the time he stopped, the smoke had cleared and he could make out that an adult woman in a tuxedo and a fancy cape with her face hidden by a hood and a feathered green mask.

"So, who are you and why don't you have nerves?" Alec said as though he honestly didn't care about the sudden intrusion.

"Ms. Mystic and magic," the self-proclaimed magic-user deadpanned. "Now, If I timed this right, Lisa will be out in three, two..."

Mike could hear the commotion of Lisa running into the room. "Okay, miss—Ahh!"

Mike couldn't see, but it sounded like Lisa collapsed.

The visitor snapped and Lisa was levitated into the air and sat on the couch.

"Sorry about that," she said. She then reached into the lapel of her tux and pulled out a gold coin. "Magic charm. Meant to neutralize certain thinker and master effects. Keeps Regent from tripping me up and stops you from figuring out who I am before you're supposed to." She mumbled under her breath about it not working on smell and kicking the ass of someone named Ashley when she got home. "The headache should clear up in a second."

"Why make it give me a headache!?" Lisa shouted while clutching her head.

"Because your head could do with a bit of deflating right now," Ms. Mystic replied. "Now, despite the unusual circumstances of my arrival here, I come in peace." She pulled a big, expensive-looking briefcase and opened it up to reveal that it was full of stacks of cash. "As you can see by the ludicrous amount of money that I stole from some nazis, I have a job for Tattletale and Bruiser."

"Really, really don't like you right now."

"Lisa, those are stacks of hundreds," Mike said. "I know I agreed to follow your rules if I got to live here, but we almost robbed a bank for a lot less than that so if you're gonna say no to that then you might need to go over the rules again."

"So, if the job's not for me can I just like, go and take a nap or something?" Mike had noticed that Alec didn't seem to care about much of anything.

"That's right," Ms. Mystic said with a dismissive wave of her hand. Alec got up and wandered back to his room. "I'm gonna miss him," she said randomly. "So, onto the job—"

"Why? What makes you think that—" Lisa was cut off by Ms. Mystic shoving a piece of paper in her face. "Okay, I'll hear you out," she said while pocketing the paper.

"So, Mike… You probably remember Molly being a huge fan of the X-Men," Ms. Mystic began.

"Wolverine mostly," Mike clarified. "She wanted to marry him when she grew up at one point." Idly, Mike wondered if Honey Badger had a boyfriend.

"Well, I'm a sorcerer from about six years in the future," Ms. Mystic explained, "and right now I'm doing the kind of thing that Bishop and Cable tend to do: Tinker around in the past to make sure the future happens right."

Mike felt his eyes going wide. "I'm in."

"What exactly do you want us to do?" Lisa asked carefully.

"Nothing major," Ms. Mystic said. "Mike needs to be immunized for something, there are some serums that I need to give to people and Lisa… Well, spoilers."

"That's not exactly very reassuring," Lisa said slowly.

"It's very low risk," Ms. Mystic said. "Get in, smash a robot, steal some stuff, head to a desert, loot a corpse, we're back here in less than an hour." She paused. "Also, you don't really have a choice: This needs to happen and we already left."

She snapped and Mike felt like a hook had grabbed him behind where his belly button would be if he had one and then pulled _hard._

The room spun and Mike's head swam and the next thing he knew he was on the hot ground with the afternoon sun beating down on him.

He pushed himself up to see Lisa doing the same and Ms. Mystic standing calmly and checking her nails. They were inside a big fence, at least ten feet tall and topped with barbed wire. The fence was around a grey building with no windows and a heavy metal door with

"Where are we?" Mike asked.

"A government biological and chemical storage facility on Earth 727," Ms. Mystic said matter of factly. "SHIELD was maintaining it but then they disbanded and Washington didn't have much in the way of spare resources to devote to protecting a facility in the middle of nowhere that only a handful of people know about, so all they did was post one hidden robot guard." She paused. "Honestly, it's a bit of an oversight. There's at least one sample of just about every biological agent, drug, or toxin ever encountered by the CIA, FBI, SHIELD, SWORD, HAMMER, ONE… Honestly, if our intentions weren't noble, our being here would mean that the world could be fucked. I should probably burn this place down when we're done."

"What are we here for!?" Lisa asked, clearly angry about getting jerked around.

"Medicine," Ms. Mystic said like a businesswoman would say it just as the ground began to rumble.

Out from the earth emerged an android at least twenty feet tall. It was filthy, covered in dry soil, but mike could make out the purple metal of the body and the blue armored torso, hands, and boots. It's head, like a sci-fi version of one of those Olmec statues, bent down and stared directly are Mike. **"Mutant detected. Priority, defend the facility from the threat of mutants. The mutant will evacuate the facility or be destroyed."** The android, the sentinel, held out one palm with the laser blaster or whatever glowing a bright orange. **"The Mutant has ten seconds to comply. Nine. Eight. Seven."**

Mike didn't let it get to six. As soon as it started counting down he ran towards it and, his eyes and fists glowing pink, punched it in the shin hard enough to take its entire left leg off.

The Sentinel collapsed to the ground and Mike picked up the leg and brought it down, foot first, onto the main body again and again and again until the whole Sentinel was good and smashed. The machinery whined as it shut down.

Mike turned back to face Ms. Mystic and Lisa, who was staring at the Sentinel's remains and clearly didn't like whatever she was learning from it and sat down. Going out that much made him tired. "So," he began, "what were they planning to do if someone who wasn't a mutant tried to attack this place?"

"They weren't planning anything," Ms. Mystic said dismissively. "Government bureaucracy can be horribly ineffective at the best of times, and this was immediately after HYDRA's takeover and the concurrent collapse of SHIELD," she continued as she walked past Mike to the door on the building. "Hardly anyone knows about this building and a lot had to be redone, so they slapped a bandaid over it with plans to come back later and never came back."

As Mike turned to keep an eye on the sorceress, he could see her standing in front of the heavy metal door and doing the rocker-horn thing that Doctor Strange did when he was casting spells with her right hand.

Then she pulled with her left hand and the door was pulled right out of the wall.

Lisa came up next to Mike. "I don't think I'm going to like the answer, but why is there a giant killer robot designed specifically to kill one specific minority guarding a government building?"

"Some people are really, really prejudiced against mutants," Mike answered. "A lot of those people are in Government." He noted that Ms. Mystic was waving him and Lisa forward and went up to join her, Lisa following.

Mike got the feeling that Lisa wasn't comfortable being a blind follower.

The facility was mostly just rows and rows of reinforced shelves with glass panes and number pads every couple of feet on each shelf. They walked all the way to the right wall of the building and followed the shelf to the far end.

Along the way, Mike could make out vials with labeled with strange serial numbers. Once they stopped, Mike could see a shelf with a dozen vials, including three in the middle filled with something red and viscous-looking.

Ms. Mystic sprinkled some powder on the number pad and then beckoned Lisa forward. "Your power should let you guess the code now that I've illuminated the finger-prints from the last person to open it."

Lisa stepped up and looked at the number pad for about half a minute, then she punched in a code, the pad beeped, the buttons flashed green, and the glass on the shelf slid up.

Ms. Mystic reached in and grabbed the vials of red liquid. She shoved two into the confines of her cape and popped the cork out of the third. She dropped a tiny green crystal into it, then pulled out and eye-dropper and put a drop of something clear in, then she recorked it and shook it up.

She started muttering something in some language Mike couldn't understand. Probably Egyptian, he caught her saying 'Imhotep.' The vial glowed green, and then she handed it to Mike.

"Drink up," she said. "A killer from Earth Bet has figured out how to synthesize Terrigen. It's weaker than the real stuff, but a mist of it can cause M-Pox all the same. She doesn't know M-Pox only affects Mutants though, so when she releases it in Brockton Bay… Well, it's basically only you at risk. The other three mutants that'll be in Brockton Bay when the Nine hits are either immune or have some other way of protecting themselves from airborne toxins. With that spell combined with the potion's native immune-boosting effect, you'll be immunized."

Seeing no reason not to, Mike popped the cork and downed the vial. It tasted bitter and metally.

When he finished he grimaced and looked up to Ms. Mystic. "That was gross. What was that medicine made of?"

"Mostly human blood," Ms. Mystic stated as a matter of fact. Lisa cussed.

Immediately, Mike felt sick to his stomach. He couldn't think of any reason why a potion made of blood would make him not get sick unless…

"Am… Am I gonna turn into a vampire?"

"No," Ms. Mystic quickly corrected. "You remember a few years ago when Apocalypse went in front of the UN and demanded that 90% of the human population be exterminated or he'd kill them all with a plague?"

"I think so," Mike said. "Molly didn't watch the news much but that sounds familiar."

"Well, his blood has healing powers and he used it as the base for a cure-all potion to protect the 10% or so he figured were worthy but a lot of it got lost in a fight. ONE was involved in the conflict, that was back when they were nominally allies of the X-Men instead of a government-sanctioned hate group, and they managed to get a few samples of the blood potion, which we just looted."

"What are you gonna do with the other two?" Mike asked of the sorceress.

"I'm going to give one to a certain someone to use in an upcoming emergency and the other is going into storage so that a Cape who doesn't exist yet can tinker with it in the future," Ms. Mystic explained. "Now, we need to get the Hell out of this building so I can burn it down and destroy all of these biohazards."

They started walking out and Lisa spoke again. "Okay, I can't figure it out, and if you know me that means something: How would someone know that their blood has healing powers if you drink it? I can see that power existing but if it's genetic I don't see how you'd find out about it. With a Parahuman power, you can guess from the trigger event if it's not obvious, but without a Trigger what would make you think to try that?"

"I don't know the full story," Ms. Mystic said as they walked back out, "I'm a Bet native, most of what I know of 727 comes from… Well, you know her as Cuddlebug. This is like, a third-hand story, she'll learn it from someone and who learned it from someone else… Apparently, it involved a fight with Dracula."

"Oh, haha," Lisa began sarcastically. "Yeah, but… You're serious..." Lisa went quiet for a second. "Mike. Everything about your universe terrifies me."

Mike shrugged as they left the building and Ms. Mystic led them over to the fence.

"Now," she said, "I can only cast this spell every so often unless I want Mephisto to know I'm stealing his shit, but I think that making sure a bunch of diseases and toxins get destroyed is worth a use. Please stand back."

Mike backed up so that his back was to the fence while Ms. Mystic waved her hands about and chanted words that sounded wrong and scary. Her hands glowed orange and then a beach-ball sized burst of flame went screaming from her fingertips and through the door of the building. A moment later the entire building was engulfed in flames and was letting off a wail like a banshee.

Mike covered his ears and watched for a whole minute until the building was nothing but a pile of ash. He uncovered his ears just in time to hear Lisa muttering. "Hell is real… Hell is real. Oh, God..."

"You can have an existential crisis later," Ms. Mystic said callously. "We've gotta loot a corpse and then get you two back to the loft."

She mentioned something about a Great Weaver and pointed to an empty space and a big blue-white rift in space appeared. "Mike, walk through that and you'll be in the middle of the desert somewhere in Arizona back on Bet. I need to have a quick word with Lisa, we'll be right behind you."

Mike heard a loud slap just as he stepped through and ended up in the desert. He took two steps forward and stopped because he was right in front of a human skeleton. It looked a bit disarrayed, some bones not connected and one of the legs missing, and there was something golden in the rib cage, rolled up in a ball with cords sticking to individual bones.

He heard footsteps behind him and found Ms. Mystic and Lisa stepping out of the portal, which closed behind then.

Lisa looked down at the bones. "Picked clean by scavengers and sun-bleached… pelvic bones are female, facial bones, probably of East Asian descent… I'd say late teens or early twenties… Cause of death would be the broken neck… No scraps of clothing, so she was naked when she was left here… Probably murdered elsewhere in dumped in the desert… I'd say no more than a couple weeks ago…. And I've got no idea what the hell that thing in her ribcage is."

"Close, but no," Ms. Mystic explained. "She's from the same cloning facility as Mike. when reality got torn a new one, most of the clones ended up on the east coast but a couple ended up elsewhere. She landed in the desert head first and broke her neck. The thing in her ribs is what we're here for." Ms. Mystic pulled a crooked pink dagger from out behind her back and pricked her right middle finger. She then held it out and let a drop fall from her finger and land on the skeleton's sternum. "When blood is shed..." Ms. Mystic said, and Mike's eyes went wide.

That sounded exactly like what… Lisa said the bones probably came from a young Asian woman…

The gold thing in the rib cage oozed out and through the ribs to form a blob on the top of the bones, and then Ms. Mystic moved like lightning to grab it in her hand. She pulled it up from the bones and with a zap somehow shocked the golden ooze, which caused it to shift and solidify into a gold and blue copy of Nico's staff.

"There's an artifact in Mike's homeworld called The Staff of One. Belongs to the women of the Minoru family, a clan of Japanese sorcerers. Can cast any spell once per wielder… Under normal circumstances. Stronger and more knowledgeable with magic, the more fast and loose you can get with the rules. The people who made the clones were doing all kinds of experiments with biological weapons and super soldiers." Ms. Mystic started twirling the staff "They managed to make biomechanical weapons with the properties of a magic metal called Uru and decided to see if they could make their own Staff of One with Uru infused Biomass, the DNA of a couple of people with natural magical affinities, and a bunch of nanobots that collectively serve as a database for everything they know about magic."

Ms. Mystic tapped the head of the staff on the ground a few times. "Once they got it close enough, they put it in a clone of the real thing's current master hoping that her magical bloodline would complete it. It didn't work. Magic doesn't work like that, but the Symbiosis Staff, as I've taken to calling it, is still a high-quality magical focus, a potent magical battery, and the nanobots can function as a post-modern spellbook once the staff finishes adapting to a host."

"So we desecrated a corpse so you could get a toy?" Lisa asked, annoyed.

"We have to bury her," Mike said. "We have to." He wasn't Molly. This wasn't the real Nico. But still…

Ms. Mystic waved a hand and the ground turned to loose sand. The bones sank beneath them. A snap and the ground became solid one more. A flick of the wrist made a rock from the distance flow over and sit over where the skull had been. Finally Ms. Mystic drew what looked like Norse runes in the air, which lingered there in blue light, before fading.

"Laid to rest with a spell to keep her grave from being disturbed," Ms. Mystic said with more empathy than she'd shown since they'd met. "Feel better?"

"A little," Mike replied.

"As for you, Lisa," Ms. Mystic began with a turn, "no. The staff isn't for me. I've already got one exactly like it."

Once more moving like lightning, Ms. Mystic stabbed Lisa with the staff and it turned to goo and slithered inside Lisa's body. Lisa's screams were bloodcurdling.

Mike moved to do... Something, but he got that pulling feeling in his belly again.

Mike and Lisa landed on the couch back at the loft. When Mike got his bearings about him again, he could see Lisa clutching her belly where'd she'd been stabbed, but there was no blood. Her shirt wasn't even torn. And there was no sign of Ms. Mystic... Other than the briefcase from earlier

"Lisa, are you okay?"

"I think so," she said breathing heavily. "But God damn… I am such a _bitch!_ "


	23. Chapter 17

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

As I made my way from the girl's lockers to Ashley and my shared bedroom, I came to the conclusion that I was getting just a little too used to living on base.

It'd only been a couple of days since the Poisons attacked the mall and so far there hadn't been any sign of them. I hadn't seen any sign of Ms. Mystic, either, but apparently, she'd been around and was insisting that Ashley still needed to be sequestered on base and well, I wasn't gonna leave her here alone.

Ashley was still in bed asleep, laying on her side in the bottom bunk with her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms crossed around them. I wasn't sure if I should be concerned that she slept in the fetal position or if it was just something cute she did. At the desk, my Wards-issued phone buzzed. I checked it and had a message.

About a minute later, Ashley started to stir. I let her go through her routine of yawning and stretching, which took about another minute, before informing her about what was in the message. "That healer kid that Ms. Mystic mentioned at the debriefing is gonna get here in a little bit and she's gonna be joining us, so they want us to be part of the welcome wagon."

"Okay," she said with a yawn. "Does it say when? PR wants me to do that live-stream thing this afternoon."

Someone had overheard Vista's slip up about Cuddlebug being from a different world. After spending some time discussing it, PR had decided to just open up and be honest about it like Ashley wanted to in the first place.

"Soon," I answered, "the kid and her PRT escort crashed at a motel in the next town over last night and they're on the way now." I made a note to ask if the escort was a plain-clothes operative pretending to be a relative… No, that was probably it.

"Got it," Ashley said. She stood up from her bunk and shifted her Spider-Man pajamas into her Cuddlebug suit. "Now I just need to finish waking up. Think there's enough time to head to mess -hall for breakfast first?"

"They said they'll send another message when they make it to HQ, so probably. Give me a second, I'll walk you down."

Ashley nodded and left the room so I could get into costume.

A short while later, I found Ashley sitting in the common room and talking with Missy.

"I don't see what you're upset about," she said to the red girl. "Scars are ugly and gross."

"Not the point," Missy dismissed. "Those scars were proof that I'd been in fights and came out alive. Proof that I'm not just a kid. And now they've all healed away."

"Okay, I guess that makes sense… So, you get the message that we're getting a new kid?"

"Yeah. The new healer," Missy acknowledged. "The witch said she'll be able to fix up Dean's leg… Of course, she also said we needed those vaccines and Dennis got high on his. Anyway, I should probably get ready if the meeting with her is so god-fucking-damn early."

Missy got up off the couch and started heading back toward the rooms.

"You ready?" I said to Ashley.

"Yeah."

The very early shift in the PRT mess hall was a bit weird. It had breakfast, of course, but it also served PRT troopers getting off of the graveyard shift who didn't have the time or energy to eat at home or stop for something on the way so there was a lot of dinner food too. Chicken and waffles seemed to be a constant of the menu on this shift, which Ashley had gotten for herself with a side of bacon and a bottle of apple juice. Not being a ravenous little girl, I contented myself with a banana and a water bottle.

Ashley was already stuffing her face by the time I'd rolled my mask up. Watching her eat, sometimes I had to wonder if there wasn't a black hole in her belly.

"Have you always eaten that way?" I finally asked.

"Mmhmm!" She confirmed through a mouth full of bacon. She took a moment to chew and swallow. "It's part of my mutation," Ashley explained. "I need to eat more than a normal person. My doctor thought it was to make up for how my body produces extra chemicals. It doesn't line up exactly but I'm not the first mutant to have weird mass and energy stuff. There's a lady with the Great Lakes Avengers who can just make herself fat whenever she wants and then pukes the fat up when she wants to be thin."

I had to force myself to eat after hearing that. Ashley's own appetite did not seem affected.

We got the alert that the new kid was here just as Ashley finished eating. We finished up and made our way to the elevator.

"What do you think the new kid's gonna be like?" Ashley asked me.

"I don't know," I said. "They're a healer so I hope they're friendly." If anyone gets hurt, they'll have to depend on the new kid. And who would want to go to a healer you can't trust or get along with?

When we got back to Wards HQ, Vista was in costume and Kid Win, Clockblocker, and Aegis had arrived.

I'm pretty sure Clockblocker was just sitting on the couch asleep and Kid Win kept looking down the hall towards his lab. Aegis was the only one of the arrivals to be looking professional.

"Where's Browbeat?" I asked. Honestly, I hadn't seen him since the debriefing.

"He said something about his parents disliking the amount of danger the Wards get into," Aegis explained. "I don't know if he's leaving the program, but you shouldn't expect to see him around for a while."

I nodded, but apparently, Ashley wasn't satisfied. "But danger is part of being a superhero."

"Yeah, but we're kids," Aegis countered. "The situation in this city isn't normal. Most Wards only see actual combat a handful of times until they're almost adults."

Ashley scoffed. "Energizer was fighting the literal Legions of Hell when she was five and she turned out all right."

"...So, if we ever make contact with Ashley's homeworld I'd like to meet this Energizer," Vista admitted.

"Seriously, you're just messing with us at this point, aren't you?" Turns out Clockblocker was awake after all.

"Nope!" Ashley replied with a pop. "I was just a baby when it happened so I don't remember it but all of Manhattan got merged with a Hell-Realm and there were demons everywhere."

"...on the other hand," Vista backtracked, "maybe it'd be better if we never made contact."

"...Yeah, that's fair," Ashley admitted. Then she made an awkward laugh.

The masks on buzzer went off, but everyone already had their masks on, so no one did anything.

A few moments later Miss Militia led in a girl who looked around thirteen. The girl was dressed in a white bodysuit accented with a knee-length skirt, simple top, and hooded cloak in red. The mask she had on looked suspiciously like Ashley's but in white with black eye-lenses.

Then I noticed the animate, teddy bear sized bundle of twigs sitting on her shoulder.

"Wait," Vista said in recognition, "I know you. You're that Klara girl that saved Peat and Fenn… You changed your costume a little since then."

"Uh, yeah. My name's Klara Prast… Though apparently, I need to use a code name for this, so when I'm wearing this mask call me Rose Red."

"Well, I'm Vista. I normally look older and less red than this."

"Clockblocker," the young man said with a raise of the hand.

"Kid Win. I build lasers."

"I'm Aegis, I'm the leader of this team," our leader declared.

"I'm Weaver," I started. "I hope you're not arachnophobic."

"I'm Cuddlebug, I like hugs," Ashley finished.

"Okay… Would, would you like a hug now?"

"Not from you," Ashley said. "I know exactly what that costume is and if you and I ever touch it'll hurt my symbiote."

"...Okay," Rose Red replied.

"Je suis Groot," the bundle of twigs on her shoulder squeaked.

"Groot Jr. says it's nice to meet all of you," Rose Red translated.

"Literally all he said was 'I am Groot' in french," I found myself saying without meaning to.

"Groot's species have a limited vocal range but are capable of putting an infinity of meanings in that range with subtle nuances," Ashley explained as though reciting from an encyclopedia.

"Yes," Rose Red confirmed, "but I don't have any way of knowing what any of that means. I'm something called a botanopath. I can communicate with plants and Groot Jr. Is basically a walking talking tree so I can always understand exactly what he means."

"Cuddlebug's comment about Rose Red's costume brings us to an important point," Miss Militia began. "Red Rose is another Case 81 and based on cross-referencing her story against Cuddlebug's leads us to believe that she's from the same reality." She paused to let this set in. "That's part of the reason why we brought her here, we thought it'd be best to keep anyone with the same experiences together. Rose Red, why don't you tell your new teammates about yourself."

"I was born in 1896," Rose Red began. "I'm originally from Switzerland. When my birth parents found out about my special powers, they assumed that it was proof that I was inherently wicked and my mother sold me as a to a man heading for America… In 1907, I met a group of people from the 'modern-day' and went back to the future with them. I have absolutely no regrets about it."

Well, that brought the mood down.

"This is my second time working with a super team," the girl continued. "I used to be with the Runaways, who are my dearest friends who I love, but I retired from superheroics after the team was temporarily split up and I ended up in foster care." She paused for a moment. "I'm actually very unhappy about this situation because I finally had a stable home life where my chances of dying in a fire are low, which is apparently not normal because I'm apparently something called a mutant and mutant children don't get adopted. Back in my time, people like me were called Wonders. I like that better than Mutant."

"...Is dying in a fire something you're worried about on a regular basis?" Clockblocker asked.

"Very much so," Rose Red admitted. "I almost died in a textile factory fire. My friend's parents died in a fire. One of their friends died in the same fire. Another one of their friends died in a different fire… She came back to life later, but still. It's something that's on my mind frequently."

"Okay."

"I'm uh… Mostly adjusted to the modern world and modern values, so… Like, I don't have any problems with other races or homosexuals,… anymore. I uh… used to ignorant on some things. I know better now… Is it weird that I brought this up? I mean, the stereotype about people from my time is that—"

"We get it, it's okay," Aegis continued.

The new girl sighed in relief. "Uh… More personally I like gardening and I've gotten _really_ good at video games. This costume was forced on me by the people who stranded me here. It lets me heal people and as far as I know, that's all it does. Your PRT agreed to give me a place to stay and help me get home to my adoptive fathers if I agreed to heal their heroes who get hurt until they find a way to send me home."

The girl moved forward further into the room. "I've been told there'd be a room ready for me when I got here. I, uh… It's been years since I've been up this early and I'd like to get back to sleep if it's not too much trouble."

"That's fair," Aegis said. "The rooms are down this way, I'll show you to one," and began leading the girl down the hall.

Miss Militia left as soon as Rose Red's introduction was over. Clockblocker leaned over the couch and glanced at Ashley. "So," he said, "our new friend was on a team before back in your world. Is there anything we should know about her that she didn't share?"

"What?" Ashley began. "Do you think every mutant knows who every other mutant is? The Runaways were small fish based on California. Klara's probably the creepy plant girl who can summon a vine forest to fight off a squad of paramilitaries. She seems friendly enough," Ashley finished, "so just don't get her mad and you'll be fine."

I was about to chide Ashley for phrasing it like that when I got another message on my phone. The Poisons had been spotted.


	24. Interlude 6(Grandpa)

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

 _Several Years Ago_

Patrick O'Leary the junior was housesitting for his son and daughter in law. Well, housesitting was a bit of an extreme word for it, they'd only been gone a few hours and would at most be gone for a few more. Really, they just needed someone to periodically check on the air cleaners and be there if someone came calling.

He tried not to think about it, the reason for Sean and Yuri's extended day trip, but still his thoughts came to his granddaughter. Little Ashley, his bright-eyed, intelligent, optimistic grandchild was sick. sick, and they werren't sure what. She kept getting bad infections, ones that medicine didn't seem to help with, the once energetic child could barely stand, and according to his daughter-in-law, she'd started getting a weird rash or something on her back. They'd been doing everything to minimize the risk of infection while the doctor ran every test there was to try and figure it out.

Today, Ashley was getting genetic screening done. Sean was getting genetic screening, and Yuri, and Yuri's sister Yuki. He'd be there too if they hadn't wanted to have someone to make sure that the apartment stayed safe for Ashley, becuase they'd narrowed it down to something genetic. If necessary, he'd go in to get it done later.

He distracted himself with a 24-hour news channel, but he couldn't invest himself in any of it. 'Superhuman registration this' and 'protesting a company for discrimination that.' Honestly, he thought that predjudices like that, against powers, race, religion, sexuality... It was all so stupid. He had proof of its stupidity: His father had disowned him for marrying a Chinese woman. Patrick had been an only child, and his mother had passed years before, so his disinheritance had left his father with no one. Patrick Senior died alone and bitter, while Patrick Junior had lived an amazing life with his beloved winter plumb until she passed, had a son who'd grown into a successful man, he'd had numerous interesting experiences—how many people could say that the God of Thunder had bought them and several others a pint becuase he liked how he and the other patrons of the pub handled themselves when a Friend of Humanity type got drunk and violent and started ranting about mutants ruining the country. Wasn't particularly smart of him to do it at that particular pub, since the owner and bartender of the establishment was an open mutant and the mutant power to be really good at chemistry might not be that useful in fight without time to prepare, but it did make for a damn fine craft beer that's reputation attracted the interest of a literal God and his friends the Demigod and the Immortal Candian.

But, back to Patrick Senior. The funny thing about disinheriting someone? It doesn't take if they're your only remaining relatives. There wasn't much inheritance. Or rather, there wasn't much that he'd wanted. His father had, in his age, blown his entire savings on a vintage car that he couldn't even drive by the time he'd bought it and his childhood house had been devoid of untainted memories or knickknacks of sentimental value, just a few things that Patrick's mother had wanted him to have, which he'd already taken by the time he left. There was only enough liquid money to barely cover his father's final debts and the cost of the funeral.

He'd arranged for a simple, dignified funeral service, as his father would have wanted, and then when the priest had finished, the diggers had covered the casket, and the mourners, acquaintances of his father more than friends, had left, Patrick Junior had spat on his father's grave, sold the house to young couple in need of a good home for far less than it was worth, sold the Rolles Royce to a collector, and put all of that money into Sean's college fund and that had been the last he'd ever seriously thought of his father.

Well, until Sean had met Yuri. His daughter-in-law's very traditional Japanese father hadn't been happy about his daughter starting a relationship with a mixed white-and-Chinese man at first. But Patrick had spoken to him. They'd argued. Loudly. Then... Honestly, he couldn't remember what happened next through the hangover he had the next morning, but at somepoint, they'd started drinking and sharing their life stories and the man had given his blessing after that. Of course, they'd fought again over who would pay for the wedding, but in general, the man had been a good friend until cancer took him just a few months before Ashley was born.

About four hours into his vigil over the apartment, the sound of the door being unlocked and opened drew him from his reminiscence. First in walked his daughter-in-law, who looked angry, and then in came his son carrying his adorable granddaughter. She hadn't been changed out of her Spider-Man Pajamas before they left. they only way to tell that she wasn't just a normal girl asleep in her father's arms was the surgical mask she wore whenever she left the apartment to avoid an airborne infection.

As Sean carried Ashley to her bedroom, Yuri closed the door behind him and then turned to him. "Patrick. I know you have a flask on you. Give it to me."

Her tone made it abundantly clear that Patrick would not be able to successfully argue either his ignorance of her claim or his desire to keep it and so pulled it from the hidden pocket in his sweater and handed it to her. People always thought it was weird that a proud Irishman preferred Kentucky Bourbon over Irish Whiskey. Patrick himself thought it was far more strange that his light framed daughter-in-law could down an entire flask of the stuff without seeming to become intoxicated. This was not the first time it happened, but it only happened when she was pissed about something.

"Wasn't your sister with you?" He asked, somewhat hesitating.

"We don't talk about Yuki anymore. Yuki is dead to me," Yuri said in stone-cold seriousness. "With any luck, Ashley will forget that Yuki even exists and she'll never have to worry about it."

Patrick didn't know what to say to that, but Sean came back and sat down.

"We have a general idea of why she's getting sick," he said, "and the name of a specialty clinic that can help. And the rash isn't a rash... We're going to tell her it's a birthmark. But the bad news is that, even if she gets better, she's going to have a rough life."

"Sean. What's wrong?"

"Ashley's a mutant," his son said. "The screening says pretty much everything, the constant infections, the red mark, how weak and tired she's been getting, it's all tied to the X-gene. She mutated wrong or something. The tests say she gets it from me."

"Okay," Patrick said. He wasn't sure how they'd prepare her for the shit she was going to get when she was older, but at least maybe they could find a way to help her.

"But... You told me once that my great grandfather had this symbol tattooed behind his ear? What did it look like?"

"Why?" He asked.

"Uh, while we were in, the doctor checked on the mark on her back because it's been changing shape and color and... Maybe it'd be best if we just showed you?"

A few minutes later, Patrick was in Ashley's bedroom with his sleeping grandchild turned on her side and the back of her shirt pulled up so show a red symbol. Four wedges around an oval with a sharp line splitting it.

"That's it. That's the tattoo," he said as his blood ran cold.

 _Later that Night._

At his own apartment, that evening, Patrick looked over a letter. His grandfather, William Slade, the bastard son of an Englishman. The drunken bastard that was obsessed with Egyptians. He'd written it and passed it onto his daughter with instruction to keep passing it down until one of his descendants had some kind of supernatural powers.

Of course, Patrick had been curious and opened the letter himself. Years ago. That's how he knew about Clan Akkaba. About how he, his son, and his grandchild had trace amounts of ancient Egyptian in their blood. About where the mutant gene that Ashley had inherited came from. Instructions to contact Clan Akkaba once their birthright had been restored so they could take their rightful place. He'd dismissed it as a joke until the Ancient Mutant Apocalypse—his ancestor, En Sabah Nur—had resurfaced a few years ago. Then he started to get worried.

He read the old letter one last time... And then he stood, walked into his kitchen, and burned the letter on his stove. He prayed to whatever god would listen that their connection to the ancient monster would never come to light and never cause Ashley any distress. That Ashley could just have a quiet, happy life.

Then he grabbed his coat and went out to his favorite pub to drown his worries in a mutant made microbrew.

 **AN:** This wasn't planned, really. I was gonna do a short flashback side story becuase the whim hit me but then as I thought about it I felt it made more sense as a proper Interlude, albeit a flashback one.


	25. Chapter 18

**Snuggles The Symbiote**

Each of us was given a small dart-gun full of something quickly cludged together from a sample of Rose Red's costume that been taken when the PRT first picked her up. Apparently, Tattletale's future self had been here for a bit longer than we thought to arrange for things.

The Poisons had been seen in the middle of town, near where most of the big businesses were, fighting an unknown cape in a suit of Powered Armor... except they'd only been the really small ones, not evil me, evil Panacea, or eviler Bonesaw. Still, it was the best lead to find them and put a stop to them.

We were split up, a few Wards, a few Agents, and a few Protectorate each, in PRT transport vans for quick transport to the fight. In addition to the agents backing us up, I was in a van with Vista and Gallant with Miss Militia standing at the head.

"Now, Ms. Mystic has stated that the 'anti-venom' in the darts should be debilitating to the standard poisons and instantly lethal to the 'bound' poisons, but R&D was only able to make so much on short notice so don't waste a dart on a little one if you don't need to," the more experienced heroine explained. "Ms. Mystic has insisted that they are not in any way, shape, or form human, do not have human values, and despite their insistence that the original person they consumed is dead and gone, claimed that held up to scrutiny by Aemsmaster's lie detector and thinker analysis of a recording of the interview, so don't hesitate to kill."

I couldn't help but think that under any other circumstances, someone in a military uniform telling minors to kill would be the bad guy. Funny what you think about on the way to a fight.

Vista kept glancing at Gallant's leg but not saying anything. It was hard to tell with his armor on but he seemed to know but wasn't acknowledging it. "Gallant, how's the leg?" I asked, just in the hopes of getting the ice broken.

"Fine," he said. "A little stiff, but that's what physical therapy is for and Armsmaster adjusted machinery in the leg of my suit to compensate. Rose Red was a bit grumpy about being rushed to fix me up, but that's understandable. How are you doing?"

We were heading out to exterminate the monsters that literally want to eat my new sister alive. What do you think? "Fine," I answered back. "Vista?"

"First time out since I... Uh, well, Cuddlebug called it 'hulking out,' " she said. "First chance to prove that this doesn't affect my contribution to the team."

The talk about contributing reminded me. "Didn't Ms. Mystic warn us not to send out agents against the Poisons?"

"While the PRT appreciates her warnings about the enemy's capabilities and weaknesses," Miss Militia began, "we feel that our tacticians are more likely to have a better understanding of our agents capabilities and form a proper battle plan."

 _"I take absolutely no responsibility for any deaths that happen as a result of your inability to listen."_ Came the voice of the sorceress over our headsets. Well, wasn't that encouraging?

Miss Militia held her hand to her head, seemingly getting a message on her headset that the rest of us couldn't... "If they're dressed like Gandhi, they're probably not... What's a Metal Gear...? Fine."

"Bad news," she said after finishing and turning back to us. "Uber and Leet are at city hall with a giant robot trying to get Mayor Christner to declare videogames an art form. So far they're peaceful, but supposedly, the robot is equipped with nuclear weapons. The rest of the convoy is being diverted to help contain the situation so the poisons are all on us. This means that it is especially important that you follow my instructions."

 _"Don't listen to her. She places too much value in rules and regulations, she'll get you killed. The only instructions you need right now are 'do what you know yourself to be capable of' and 'kill all sons of bitches.' Actually, that first one is in general. You're not her little soldiers and you're not supposed to be, and all three of you have better judgment than hers in my opinion."_ Okay, having someone from the future giving advice was less and less of comfort over time.

"Do you have some sort of problem with me?" Miss Militia asked back into her headset.

 _"Just that you're a spineless hypocrite with a fundamentally flawed and biased sense of judgment. But what do I know? I'm just a bitch. Pro-tip though? Saving lives and doing the right thing are more important than following orders or obeying the law. You're never gonna get that through your thick skull, but I'm obligated to try."_

Wow... there was something bitter and hateful behind Ms. Mystic's words. What happened? What was going to happen?

I pushed it out of my mind. The last thing I needed right now was to be distracted. I tried to focus on something else but all I could think of was Ashley telling me once that after doing some research about Earth Bet that we had weirdly high beauty standards.

A short while later, the van stopped with the back opening and everyone piling out. We were just outside the Medhall building. Miss Militia started to give orders but was immediately hit by a flying poison on the end of a blue beam of light, then collapsed to the ground.

 _"That's the other reason I told you to use your judgment. She'll be fine, but she's gonna be out cold for about an hour."_

"Well, shit," Vista said while starring at the unconscious Protectorate. She then casually raised a hand and disintegrated an approaching poison with a blast of heat and radiation. Clearly, she'd been practicing.

"Sorry," came a modulated and partly mechanized masculine voice. The unknown cape in the powered armor had said that between punching out Poisons. The armor was simultaneously bulky and form-fitting, giving the impression of well-defined musculature under a think layer of metal. The main body was blue, with red gauntlets to the lbw, boots to the knee, and a chest plate with pauldrons and white bands on the arms and legs, a white star emblem on the chest, and a white faceplate over a red helmet.

"It's fine," Vista said, quickly stepping into a leadership role. "Accidents happen, who are you and what's the sitch?"

"I'm Iron Patriot!" The man said while blasting a Poison... Why were there so many? Where were they coming from? "I was making my inaugural patrol when I saw these things swarming around. Recognized them from the news."

"Okay, well, since our CO is out cold I'm taking command," Vista said. No one challenged her. "Weaver? Swarm and Recon, find out where they're coming from. Agents? Defensive formation Gamma around Weaver and Miss Militia, shoot or form anything that gets too. Gallant? There are too many life forms for me to warp space around here to a usable degree, emotion control might not work on these things but they're small enough that your knock-back should still let you give me supporting fire. Me? I'm gonna fry some monsters."

PRT Agents formed around me, but I didn't pay much mind. Instead, I started shedding spiders from every vent I had and sent millions of them swarming off in every direction. In addition, I drew on every bug and worm that was naturally in the area. I tried to blank out my surroundings about me as a map of the area formed in my mind's eye. A sewer grate. A sewer grate not too far from here had been torn open from the inside. A few bugs started pouring down, looking for any signs of the Poisons, when I was distracted by something blowing up a piece of the street.

My attention was drawn back to the real world, my spider-reflexes keeping me on my feet, in time to see a woman glowing in blinding white light floating in the air above us. Purity. I'd heard she'd left the Empire and was trying to go straight, so if she was here to help... But then I noticed the armored figure down below her, with the Tinker Tech staff holding an ancient hammer, That creepy German lightning Tinker Ashley'd run into when she went off on her own.

"Yes... hello, we would kindly ask you all to either vacate the vicinity or kindly die," he said... His accent wasn't as thick as Ashley said it'd been.

"Don't mind him," Purity said as she flew lower. "He's cranky because his plans to cyberbully a little girl got foiled and he chose to do this instead of the English phonics lessons he's being made to take."

"If the little babies can't understand a German accent then they never should have become national-socialists in the first place," the Tinker grumbled bitterly.

"But still, we have friends who work in the area and would very much appreciate it if you'd get the hell—"

Purity was interrupted by evil-crystal-me and evil-crystal-Panacea erupting out from under the asphalt. My counterpart stabbed her through the midsection and let her fall to the ground, where she started clutching her wound in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding, all the light from her body fading and leaving a normal woman.

The Panacea doppelganger released a bloody-red goo from the crevices of her body and formed it into several tendrils with jagged blades at the end. She used one to carve right through Donar's giant hammer and the rest were impaled into the ground, which she used to slingshot herself into the formation of PRT Agents. In seconds, with each hand resembling a giant, serrated military knife she was wearing through good men who only wanted to keep the city safe.

I called on every bug I had to swarm her... I didn't think they could hurt her, but they could slow her down, distract her, leave her open to a shot from one of us with a dart-gun, but with a burst of smoke and the smell of sulfur someone was behind me. My counterpart's strong, crystalline arms wrapped around me, binding my arms to my side. Slime from... Fuck, I don't know, her legs? Oozed out over mine and held them in place. One of her hands was clamped tightly over my masked mouth and somehow she was able to overwhelm my control of the natural pests in the area and make them turn on my weaving widows, wasps and flies and bees and bigger spiders all turning on and killing the ones spawned by my powers. Off in the distance, I saw a bright flash of blue light, but I was a little too preoccupied with the stronger psychopath version of me.

"God damn it!" Donar screamed. "Do you have any idea how long it takes to rebuild the Mjolnir staff!? Do you know how many times I've had to rebuild it in the last decade? Twice! Both in this past month!" And then he held out his hands and shot lightning from his gauntlets the Poison Panacea, who paid it no mind. His comrade was bleeding out at his feet and he was concerned about an inanimate object? "You didn't even have a reason to break it! You just did it out of spite!"

I struggled against the grip of my counterpart to no avail. Instead, she forced me to watch as the Panacea knock off finished the last of the agents... So much blood, everywhere... I'm glad that Ashley wasn't here to see this. She didn't... I tried to keep from throwing up.

"Vista to console," I could hear Vista calling in. "We need back up ten minutes ago! All agents are dead, Miss Militia is out cold, Weaver's incapped and—" Vista was bowled over by half a dozen unbonded poisons.

"So, here's what's gonna happen," my counterpart said. "We're all a little upset about the resistance you showed a little bit ago, so..." I tried to stomp on her foot but if she noticed she didn't say anything. "You, and Vista, and fuck it even the Nazi scumbag and the new guy I don't recognize are gonna die here, but first I'm gonna make you watch while my Red Queen kills Gallant like she's always wanted to, just so you can see how fucked you are."

As she said that, the evil Panacea copy's hands shifted into claws and began shredding at Dean's armor.

"Don't feel too bad though," my copy said, "be comforted by the fact that by the time you're dead, Ashley will already have a new big sister and more family than you could ever possibly give her." As the small, imp-like poison crawled from my counterpart's shoulder to mine, giggling in a mischevious way, I realized that there was no sign at all of the Poison Bonesaw.

"Wondering where our little girl is?" My demented duplicate asked. "She's the only one who for sure fit in the vents."

My blood froze in my veins even as my heart rate tripled. I doubled my struggle against my bonds. I had to... I had to end this and get back to the base. I...

"Accept it, Taylor," the other me said as she tightened her grip. "There's nothing you can do... Just sit back and think of the look on that bitch Alexandria's face when we filled her bitch-lungs with Spiders... Wait, you didn't do that, did you? Oh well, no comforting memory to think of when you die."

At that time, a badly bleeding Dean was torn from his shredded armor and thrown headfirst into the still pissed off electrical tinker still futilely trying to electrocute the crystal creature with a violent hatred for my teammate.

The so-called Red Queen leaped through the air and impacted Gallant with both of her feet, knocking him and the German Tinker back a short way. Then she marched forward, picked Dean up by the throat...

And I guess she said something to him, because all of a sudden Dean's face contorted into a look of sheer rage and the crystal monster was blasted back with an emotion beam far greater than I'd seen him use before, in person or in videos of the Wards in action.

He fell to his knees when her grip was broken, but guided by the same anger he dragged himself to her with his hands, stopping only when his hand brushed the broken remains of Donar's staff. A visible spark of lightning shocked his hand, drawing his attention down to the ancient hammer in the device's remains... And then his rage softened into a look of... Recognition? He looked upon it for a moment, then grabbed the leather-bound handle in his hands.

It started at the hammer. Lightning crackled from it, up his arm, and finally arced all around him and in a blinding flash, the wounded Gallant in his torn and bloody undersuit was replaced with a wall of muscle standing a good six-foot-six, at least, with the torn suit tearing further, leaving him bare-armed and bare-chested. Dean's golden hair extended out into a long and glorious mane. If I didn't know better, I'd have said he was a grown man.

"I remember." He said in a voice that, while recognizable as Dean's, was deeper and resonating with power.

"No!" The evil Panacea screamed. "This can't be how it happened! It can't be my fault! You die here!"

"No, it is thou whom meet thy end hither!" Dean shouted and then leveled the hammer's head at the evil Panacea and one of his emotion beams but, like, a hundred times more times as intense and a blue arc of lightning spiraling around it erupted from the stone head with the force of mentos in a bottle of cola before it impacted the crystal creature. Ms. Mystic had said that the poisons were sociopaths who werren't even remotely capable of human emotion, but I could have sworn the evil knock-off was screaming in terror, not pain, as the crystals on her crumbled to dust and the slime inside boiled away. In moments there was nothing left.

My doppelganger gasped and let me go. She made a low, guttural, almost angry sound and ran for Gallant. Thinking quickly, I pulled the dart-gun I'd been provided with, took aim, and pulled the trigger. My dart his my copy, she grunted... And then she just fucking melted into a bubbling pile of goo. Her little demon, having since returned to her shoulder, and all the unbound poisons started twitching before likewise collapsing and melting.

Vista, claw marks on her skin healing, pushed herself up, took one look at Dean... And then stared slack jaw at his abs. Then she shook her head and called back in. "Vista to console. Cancel the back-up, all tangos are dead... We do need uh... a cleanup crew though," she said with her attention being drawn to the alien slime and human blood comingling in the streets. "Uh, maybe two. And someone to keep Cuddlebug from finding out that people died trying to kill the monsters that were after her while she was benched."

"We need to get back to HQ," I said quickly. "My copy all but outright said that the Bonesaw poison was infiltrating HQ through the vents to get—"

"I hate to interrupt," the Gesselschraft Tinker said while sounding like he didn't hate it at all, "but the nice young Aryan gentleman has something that belongs to me and I would very much like it back, yes?"

Dean looked down at the hammer in his hand and then to the Tinker. "Donar of Gesselschraft, I would have _words_ with thee..." A small bolt of lightning jumped from Gallant's hand down to Purity. She jolted, her stomach wound glowing briefly, and she gasped. "But on a later day. I have mended thy comrade to the best of my current abilities, but she may yet succumb to death's embrace should she not be tended to by a healer soon. Take her, and know that Thor will not tolerate thine sullying of his name nor any further attempts to subvert that which thou art not Worthy of."

"...Yes sir, Mister Thor sir!" the man said, suddenly cowed by the realization that he was, apparently, in the presence of a literal god. he stepped over to the downed Purity, picked her up far more gently than I expected based on his earlier behavior, looked back at Gallant, and then took off running.

"Vista," Gallant said as he turned to her, stopping only to pick up the remains of his helmet, "It pains me to ask that you stay here alone, but I feel that would be best if Weaver were returned to Headquarters swiftly." He lifted off the ground, floating in the air on a gust of wind. "And my sudden divinity hath granted me the means to carry her there."

At Gallant's prompting, I climbed upon as back and almost lost my breakfast from the sheer speed as he flew me back to headquarters, with "apparently Gallant's a god now" from Vista being the last thing I heard before we took off. It was only once we were in the air that I realized I'd never seen the Iron Patriot leave.

AN: Anyone who reads Ward probably has a general idea of what a completely sociopathic version of Panacea that's influenced by the Carnage symbiote said to Gallant to make him so absolutely pissed.


	26. Chapter 19

**Snuggles The Symbiote**

"So, they're not usually that busy," I said as Klara and I left the rec room. "Like, once they even let me take a pool cue to use as a pointer when I was giving a lecture to earn my consultation pay." Klara and I had a short conversation after I'd gotten back from doing a Q&A Livestream and ended up heading to the rec room because she heard about the video games, but the rec room was unusually busy today.

Now I needed to find something else to distract myself from the fact that my friends and teammates were off fighting monsters that were after me specifically.

"I'm sure it's fine, we can try again later," Klara replied. She didn't seem to let too much phase her.

We were almost to the stairs when I heard someone singing off in the distance. I stopped. "You hear that?" I asked.

"Yeah," Klara said. Then she shrugged. "Is that normal?"

I shook my head and pointed down the side hall where it was coming from. "Wanna check it out?"

Klara shrugged again and we went. At the far end of the hall were a couple of vending machines and a man in front of them. Or, at least, I thought it was a man. He sounded like a man, singing, but his back was to us so all I could make out was that he was in a suit and that he had long shiny black hair that seemed pushed back.

" ...The record shows, I took the blows, and did it... M~y way! " He finished just as we got to him. Then he grabbed the drink he'd gotten out from the little slip at the bottom of the machine, and turned around.

"Oh, hello there," he said while I got a good look at him. Yeah, he was a man. A handsome man. A pretty man, but a man... Unless he was trans? Should I be calling him they?

 _"This one continues to be baffled by the human race's obsession with pronouns."_

Anyway, I got a good look at... Him. He looked like a pretty man, long black hair pushed back, green eyes, white skin. There was something familiar about him but I couldn't place it.

"You must be Cuddlebug," he said while gesturing to me with the hand that held his soda can. Looked like some kind of fruit drink with a label I didn't recognize. His other hand had a bag of chips that I assumed were something spicy and cheesy because I could make out a jalapeno and a wedge of cheese on it. He gestured to Klara with that one. "And the healer that transferred in today. Rose Red, right?"

"Yes," Klara confirmed with a nod.

"I'm not blocking you, am I?" The man said with a warm smile.

"No," Klara shook her head. "We just heard you singing and got curious."

"I'm sorry," I said. "But you look really familiar and I can't quite place you. Have we met before? Who are you?"

"Oh, how rude of me," he said apologetically, "I'm Luke Lafayette, esquire. I'm a contract lawyer in the legal department. I don't think you and I have ever properly met," he began, "but I like to take walks on my breaks since all the machines have different selections and I'm not the kind of man who can just eat the same snack two days in a row. You've probably seen me in the halls."

"No, I don't think that's it," I said with my face scrunched together. This was gonna bug me all day.

"Well, I handled the PRT's side of negotiations for your, and Weaver's, custom contracts, little miss," He said politely. "And what a lovely opportunity that was."

"I don't...?" I was just more confused than ever now.

"You didn't hear this from me, but our esteemed director... Well, she has a stick up her ass that's bigger than she is." Klara gasped. "She means well, but... She places a lot of value in making sure her authority is known and respected. She also cares more about her agenda, parahumans being made to... fit in, to normal society, more than she cares about us doing out actual jobs. When your lawyer came in with a list of demands that very much emphasized your, and your friend's, desire to remain independent and an offer of services that the PRT could never afford to pay for in cash... I just had to talk the deputy-director into letting me offer some reasonable concessions and extra privileges to reduce the amount you were asking for..." Luke began giggling like a schoolgirl. "A wonderful opportunity to teach our esteemed director that she can't control everything and that not everyone can be beaten down and made to fit in. Either she learns her lesson, gains some humility, and becomes better at her job... Or she gets frustrated, quits, and someone else gets the job."

"...Couldn't you get in trouble for that?" I asked, incredulously.

"Nope!" He said. "Every perk and privileged you and your friend were given was evaluated, given a monetary value, and compared against that of the information you could provide and the value of Weaver's silk... Which has actually gone up a bit, so I think we're obligated to reevaluate that so she might be getting a raise soon... anyway, the point is that all the perks you two get, your consultation pay, and what Weaver is getting for her costumes all total up to exactly the value of the services and information you two provide, and everything in your contracts is completely legal. You seem like a good enough kid," he finished, "I don't think you're going to abuse your right to refuse direct orders for any reason, the power to veto any Ward being transferred out, as long as they want to stay here, and the fact that the PRT is contractually obligated to ask you for information first and can only ask others after you explicitly state you don't know or give the okay even if you quit. As uh, any randomly given examples." He said with a huge, cheesy smile.

"I've been meaning to ask about some of that stuff..." I said, suddenly remembering some concerns. "Like, the bit on transfers makes it sounds like Wards are traded around a lot whether they like it or not, but that can't be right, right?"

"Don't worry about it," Luke said. "It really isn't something you need to be concerned about right now. Just... Remember, as long as you don't violate your Non-Disclosure Agreement or break the law you're basically immune to anything they can do. Don't go crazy with it, but don't be afraid of acting your age. Everyone needs a little mischief now and then." He gave one last cheesy smile and then walked around Klara and I to head to wherever he was going, but that last sentence made something click in my head.

"Are you Loki!?" I blurted out without meaning to. I turned to see that he'd stopped walking.

Slowly he turned around. "Now what would make you ask a question like that?"

"So, uh... the old gods are real where I'm from," I said. "The Asgardians, the Olympians, and so on. Some of them are superheroes in my world. My grandpa met Thor once. Not that long ago, I fought a villain who'd stolen Mjolnir and t looked and behaved exactly like Mjolnir does in my world." I was still kind of bummed out that I wasn't Worthy. "So I know that they're real, or they were, here too. At least, the Asgardians. I didn't realize it at first, but the reason you look familiar is that you look almost exactly like the Loki in my world does." I paused for a second. "Except you're prettier than he is."

"Thank you."

"And 'Luke Lafayette' sounds really similar to 'Loki Laufeyson.' Your last name is probably spelled different, but it's really only the last syllable off in how it sounds... And playing tricks on people to teach them humility and insisting that people need mischief, that's basically what trickster deities do..." And that's as far as I'd thought out.

Luke kneeled down to look me in the eye... Well, eye lenses. Klara and I were in costume. "That sounds well reasoned out," he said, "but would the God of Lies and Stories really use such an obvious alias?"

"N... No," I admitted. "Sorry, that was dumb."

"Don't feel bad about asking a question," Luke said with a smile. "It's the best way to learn and kids your age get punished for curiosity far too much... And, if you really want, I suppose you could call me Loki. Being compared to the God of Lies has got to be the most flattering 'Evil Lawyer' joke there is." He was still smiling and sounded playful. "Now, I do need to head back to my office," he finished and left.

"So that was weird," Klara said after a second.

"Sorry," I said awkwardly.

I was about to ask if she wanted anything out of the vending machines since we were here but then my PRT issued cell-phone started vibrating. I pulled it out of the little pocket-space where Mister Snuggles keeps his extra mass with a sound like a boot being pulled out of the mud and checked my messages.

"Uh, they're saying that I need to either head back to Wards HQ and activate lockdown or get to Office C-6 in the first basement and lock the door." It didn't say why but I was suddenly really worried about Taylor and the others. "Whichever one I can get to faster. We should..."

"C-6? That's the one that doubles as a panic room, right?"

I nodded. I couldn't quite remember the tour of the facilities but that sounded right. From where we were now it was closer to head to the first basement floor than back to HQ so we started off that way, quickly marching to the stairs.

We'd gotten down to the basement okay enough but then I heard... Something. Like, something skittering around on metal. I started to speed up, but before I could say anything to Klara something ripped out of the ceiling with a sound of tearing metal and I got tackled to the ground.

I was flipped up on my back and held down by my arms by one of the Poisons, the Bonesaw one, staddled me. I tried to pull away but she was stronger than me. So much stronger than me that it wasn't even funny.

"So," I said while trying to ignore just how fast my heart was racing. "You're probably thinking to yourself, 'should I eat this kid?' The answer migh—"

My voice cracked. I... I always figured that I was gonna die of pneumonia or something... Just, one time I'd get sick and not get better. This was... I couldn't even try to fight her... The symbiote goo, she looked like Toxin. If she's got Toxin powers then I don't know anyone strong enough to beat her.

"Might surprise you, but..."

"I spent an hour sneaking around in the vents trying to find you," she said with a voice full of frozen anger. "Then five minutes ago... Poof. Mama-Pan goes, just a bit after Mama-Tay follows, the hivemind goes down... There's no one there to absorb you anymore, I'm the only Poison left in this sector of the Multiverse. We could have given you a purpose, a family, more power than you could have ever wanted." A slimy orange tentacle came out of her back and split into six others, each with a scalpel, scissors, a saw, or something poking out of the end. "Instead, I'm going to make a diorama out of your organs and frame it in a box made of your skin and bones, sew your face on the back, and fed-ex to Weaver just to make her hurt."

Well crap. "Before you kill me," I started, trying to buy time, "there's something I want to know. Did you kill—"

I was interrupted by a bunch of Thorny vines with roses on them that grabbed the Poison and yanked her off of me.

"Sorry about taking so long," Klara said as she walked around the giant plant, pulled back the anti-venom on her arm. "She didn't seem to realize I was here so when she grabbed you I went for my emergency seeds but uh... I'm having trouble with the pocket trick." She reached down with her safe hand to help me up.

"It's fine," I said. "Took me a couple of weeks to get it right. So now what?" I said, gesturing to the Bonesaw-Poison.

"I have no idea," Klara admitted. "She said she's the only one left but I don't think we can take her at her word. I suppose one of us should call in that she's captured then keep going to the safe room."

"Yeah." I started to pull my phone out, but before I could there was a whip-crack! sound, a shattering sound, a squishy sound, and then I noticed that my chest hurt. Like, a lot. It all happened so fast.

The first thing I noticed was the scalpel about an inch to the left of where my heart should be if my biology textbook was right... I could see it, I could feel the pain, and some of my blood was leaking out around it, but it didn't seem like it was real.

I gripped it by the handle and yanked it out. It hurt a little bit more, but once it was out Mister Snuggles covered up and filled the whole and it didn't hurt as much. I crouched down and sat the scalpel on the ground. And then I noticed the orange and blue goo on the floor. An orange line stretched out all the way to me, but there were chunks of broken crystal and goo all around Klara's giant killer rose plant.

"I'm sorry," Klara said. She sounded the way I felt. "I... I thought I had her restrained, but she grew another tentacle. I just, I saw her stab you and panicked."

"It's okay," I said as I tried to stand up. I couldn't. My legs were too shaky. What was wrong with me? I hadn't been this scared fighting Lung. "They said that this world's Bonesaw had been tried and sentenced to death in absentia, and that wasn't really her, it was just a monster that ate her and absorbed her mind, but..." I really don't like that she had to die, but... I didn't know how to feel.

"But she's our age," Klara said. "She, she seems maybe a year older than you, or one younger than me... How does someone that young end up doing something that bad?"

"I was gonna ask before you ripped her off of me," I explained. "When I was trying to keep her talking. I uh... I asked about Bonesaw a few days ago and they said there was some confusion about how she got started... I guess there's no way to find out for sure except by capturing the one who lives here." Except they'd said she was too dangerous to capture alive, and...

 _"There might be a way you can still learn from the Poison,"_ Mister Snuggles whispered in my ears. _"The Klyntar leave traces of themselves in a host, which records the genetic code, physiological information, and memory of the host. This codex can be analyzed to learn about the former host's suitability for a new symbiote, or a klyntar symbiote could consume this codex to gain this information permanently as well as a small measure of raw power."_

"So," I started, "if I met Spider-Man and took the piece of Venom that was leftover in him from when he was wearing the black costume, I'd get Spider-Man's memories?"

 _"And skills. This one would get stronger and gain the adaptations of the klyntar who left the codex."_

"Who are you talking to?" Klara asked.

"Mister Snuggles. My Symbiote."

"Yours talks?"

"Yours doesn't?"

 _"The codex possessed by this Bonesaw may still exist within the remnants of the Poison that devoured her,"_ Mister Snuggles continued. _"If we harvested and consumed it, it could render the information you seek."_

"Okay. So, how do we do this?"

 _"Allow this one to take control, this one will demonstrate."_

I let Mister Snuggles take over, which immediately made my legs stop shaking. He stood me up, walked over to the plant, and produced one of our own tentacles. He lowered it down with the machine-like pincers open as far as it went. Our tentacle sort of... Melted into the goo. that didn't stop Mist Snuggles from flexing and wiggling it though, and shortly afterward the tentacle pulled out with a ripping sound and a thin strip of orange and blue goo, maybe a foot and a few inches long, with a bunch of short branches forking off of it.

"Wait," I said. "You're a symbiote, and this is made of symbiote mass, and we're basically gonna eat it ...So, does this count as cannibalism?"

 _"Yes,"_ Mister Snuggles said bluntly and then the little bit he pulled out sort of got slurped up and swallowed into the tentacle and the next thing I knew it felt like shards of glass were being driven into my brain.

 _"Hurry. You have time. You can fix her, can't you?"_

...

 _"You can do it. Don't you love your mommy?"_

...

 _"I don't love her."_

...

 _"Goodbye, mommy."_

...

 _"Be a good girl."_

 **ᚷ**

Blood. Blood and death and violence and organs and... The clearest memories were of that first night, but it'd gone on like that for six years. Riley Davis...

The worst kind of villains were the ones that turned innocent victims into monsters, and...

I'd have to tell someone what I saw... As soon as... Even if it doesn't change anything, people should know the truth, and... And there was other stuff. About the Poisons and what they were doing here. About how powers worked here, and some other stuff that I was already forgetting, but...

My head cleared up. My mask was off. I was crying. And I'm pretty sure that the new pile of chunky, orange-brown goo that smelled icky was what I'd eaten for breakfast this morning.

Someone was holding me. I looked up and it was Taylor. Her mask was off too. She was okay. Behind her I could see a tall, muscular man in torn tights and Gallant's mask, and... I smiled. Knowing that there was someone Worthy on our side made me feel a little better. Gallant... Thor... He was talking to some PRT Agents. The hall was a bit crowded.

I was tired all of a sudden. I closed my eyes and everything went black, my last thoughts being to tell Mister Snuggles that I never wanted to absorb another codex ever in a million years.


	27. Interlude 7(Multi)

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

"People died?" Ashley asked in a heartbreaking voice.

Things had quieted down a bit. Everyone, excepting the squad of agents who had lost their lives against the Poison Red Queen, had come back in one piece, which led to a debriefing with each of the heroes who were deployed, the extratemporal consultant, all be supervised by Director Piggot. Normally she'd delegate it, but with everything that happened in just a few short hours, she felt that her personal touch was appropriate.

As Miss Militia, currently icing her head, had been rendered unconscious, she'd asked the Wards who'd been present to recount what happened. They'd all been testifying at once, providing information and filling in holes where one faltered, but before the director could ask a follow-up question, the child, Ashley as she wasn't wearing her mask, interrupted.

"Yeah," Vista answered sheepishly. "The whole squad we had backing us up went down. It... I'm probably gonna have nightmares about it, but..."

The youngest Ward shrank into her seat, with tears welling in her eyes. "Uh, uh..." She seemed unable to vocalize her thoughts.

The consultant from the future was immediately in front of the child, kneeling before her. "Ashley? Look at me." The child obliged. "You don't know me, not yet, but I know you. Very well. This? Was not your fault."

"But, the Poisons were after me, and I... I couldn't fight them. The little ones could have killed me in one touch and I wasn't strong enough to fight the big ones, and... So that means that it's my fault, right? That people had to fight my battles and got..." The child started hyperventilating.

The mystic sighed. "You've always been a bleeding heart and you always will, won't you?" She shook her head. "No. Sweety, to start with... Brockton Bay is kind of like New York where you're from, way too many villains per capita and not all of them follow the rules. Those men and women knew exactly what they were getting into when they signed up to help protect the city. What happened to them is not on you, it's on the Poisons." Ms. Mystic turned to glare at Director Piggot, as well as the adult capes sitting near her. "And the idiots who threw away the lives of good men because they wouldn't listen."

"Tell me this," Miss Militia asked as she adjusted her ice pack. "You say that this is a stable time loop, your history exists because you came back in time to make sure that it happened. That must mean that either you knew that those Agents would die no matter what because otherwise, their future actions would disrupt the loop. Alternatively, your warning us not to deploy agents was done specifically to engineer the deaths. In either case, whether on your head or the result of predetermination, such responsibility is not on the PRT."

"Oh, how perfectly on-brand for you, Subcommander Kiss-Butt," Ms. Mystic replied. "Yes, I knew that they'd die ahead of time. I knew that you'd deploy them regardless of what I said. I still warned you, out of moral obligation. Because, despite what you think, you law-breaking, responsibility dodging, hypocritical bootlick, predetermination isn't an excuse and free will still exists. Just because I knew you fuckers wouldn't listen, that doesn't mean that you didn't choose to ignore my advice. No one forced you to ignore my advice. You chose to ignore it, and that leaves you fully responsible."

"The same way that Director Piggot is still a raging bitch for her plans to punish Cuddlebug's potential future quote disobediences end-quote by punishing the other Wards in her place in the hopes of making her suffer by proxy even though I know about it ahead of time."

This prompted a lot of yelling and screaming that was cut short by Ms. Mystic whistling. "Incidentally, Cuddlebug's contract means that she's legally within her right to buy out the other Wards' contracts for a pittance and place them as her direct subordinates remaining in effect even if she quits, which would give them the same immunities she has... Honestly, that whole thing is blatantly one-sided in her favor, if I didn't know better I'd say that a Trickster God laid a blessing down on the lawyer that negotiated it."

This prompted Ashley to snort, seemingly cheering her up from her earlier guilt.

"So, basically, nipping the Director's bullshit in the bud by making sure everyone knows that Bleeding Heart can easily shut it down."

"I'm going to kill the lawyer who handled our side of the negotiations," the Director said while pinching the bridge of her nose. "I'm going to kill him, then I'm going to have the rest of the legal division pick that contract apart line by line because there's no way in Hell that it's legal."

"You know that you just confessed to planning a murder in a room full of people with the authority to arrest you, right?" Ms. Mystic pointed out with an audacious grin. This prompted Shadow Stalker to standup... Only to be forced back into her seat by the full-body binds of the Crimson Bands of Cyttorack. "Not now, psycho."

"You," the sorceress said while pointing to the Director whose mouth was open, "were about to say that there's a war going on in this city and how can you be expected to make any headway into curtailing it if the Wards are allowed to do whatever they want without you having the means to discipline them and bring them into line. The answer, of course, is that the Wards are supposed to be a Scouts-type organization where kids learn to use their powers responsibly and prepare for a future career in heroics. they're not meant to be your little soldiers and it's the fact that Miss 'I-Was-A-Living-Mine-Detector' hasn't murdered you for treating the Wards like child soldiers that is the biggest proof that she's a hypocrite."

Ignoring Miss Militia's glare, Ms. Mystic gestured to Weaver, and Vista, and Gallant, and Ashley. "These kids have a destiny. And the obstructive, bureaucratic, disrespectful, abusive, incompetent, authoritative bullshit that you all are used to isn't part of it. I've got years of your dirty laundry, Piggot. I can have you out of the job... I can have you in _prison,_ with a snap of my fingers... Literally, even. But for as much of a bitch that I can be, I'm going to give you the chance to mend your ways. Give up on the political goals, start treating the kids right—get them the therapy, training, and meetups with other Wards teams that they're all entitled to instead of throwing them into the grinder and in general do your actual fucking job instead of worrying about politics and PR... Or get the Hell out. Because, in this story, incompetence and abuse of authority to hurt people aren't part of the plot."

And then Ms. Mystic sighed. "And yes, I already know what you're going to pick. That doesn't change the fact that it's still your choice."

"Can we get back to the debriefing?" Ashley asked, wide-eyed and sounding frightened.

"Yes," the sorceress said as she immediately changed posture. "I'm sorry, I lost my temper. I..." The woman pulled down her mask so that it covered the bottom half of her face while exposing her eyes, which were revealed to be bloodshot and surrounded by dark circles. "I've been awake for weeks straight. That's not an excuse, that's an explanation. What I just said needed to be said, but I lost my temper and could have done it in a better way. The stress of all of this is making me slip back into some old bad habits and all I can say is sorry. Everything I said stands, but that wasn't the best way to handle it."

"I'm sure it happens to everyone," the Director said with gritted teeth and rage clear in her eyes. "Apology accepted."

A moment was taken to allow tempers to cool and composures to be gained.

"Gallant," the Director began once she'd calmed, "you claim that seeing the hammer that was recovered from the Gesselschraft Tinker Donar triggered some kind of deja vu and that once you touched it and transformed, memories not your own came flooding in... If I had my way you'd be in M/S quarantine right now, but our... Esteemed consultant insists that you're safe. Can you change back?"

"I... I know not if it can be done," he said. "Nor, why I am speaking thusly."

"Becuase you're Thor," Ashley said. "Thor always talks like that. If that Mjolnir is anything like mine, and I'm pretty sure it is, then tapping the handle on the ground or on the wall should change you back... Only tap it the once though, otherwise, you'll summon a storm."

The boy-turned-God adjusted his grip on the hammer so that he held it by the head and tapped the base of the handle against the floor. With a Flash, Thor was Dean Stansfield once more, with an old fashioned walking stick in his hand. "Huh? That's convenient," he said.

"Do you still have the foreign memories?"

"Kind of?" Dean said as he pulled off his helmet. "They were fuzzy to begin with, but... Now it's even more so. I've got, I've got the image in my head of someone I think was my... Whoever the memories belong too's brother taking a hit from some enemy I can't quite describe and dying in my... His arms. Ashley is that normal for people with... This?" He said, holding up the walking stick.

"No," Ashley said. "You get the powers of Thor... Honestly, not even that, it has energy and weather powers and turns you into a God if you're not one already but Thor has his own powers separate from Mjolnir—he's the God of Storms and Thunder, not the God of Hammers... Maybe, maybe you're not just Worthy? Maybe you're actually Thor?"

"I'm, I'm sorry, what now?" Dean asked, confused.

"Gods can't really die," Ashley explained. "Supposedly they have souls, like mortals do, supposedly, and have an afterlife, but it never lasts and eventually they come back in a new form. When the Asgardians die, especially if they die in a way that they werren't 'supposed' to, they reincarnate. When Loki died he was reborn as a human who then quickly grew up and inherited his original self's memories and powers..." She got a confused look on her face. "At least, that's how he explained how it was legal for him to run for president and that his American birth certificate was real."

Several people in the room took turns raising hands or opening mouths to ask follow-up questions only to think better of it.

"So maybe when whatever happened to Thor that left Mjolnir stranded on earth ended with Thor dying and you're his reincarnation? Maybe that's why you're getting memories and stuff? You're remembering who you were before you were you?"

"So, Gallant may or may not be the reincarnation of an ancient Pagan deity," the Director said, her fingers returned to the bridge of her nose. "...I'll, I'll let PR deal with that trainwreck latter. Armsmaster, report on the situation at City Hall?"

"There wasn't much to report," Armsmaster admitted. "Shortly after our arrival, Uber and Leet declared that negotiation had ceased and made to activate their mech's weapons, only for something to malfunction. They began to panic, while I searched a database of well-known videogames to try and identify the mech, matching it to a machine called the TX-55 Metal Gear. Per the database," the hero continued, "the weapon in question had a vulnerability in its feet and that attacking the feet with a powerful enough weapon in a specific sequence could destroy it completely." The man's tone was clinical. "I directed Dauntless to fire a blast from his lance at the feet while I read off the sequence, counting on Uber and Leet's dedication to their 'art' to lead to them to choose authenticity over practicality, but by the third blast, something went wrong. The weapon seemingly exploded in an eruption of blue-white light and both it and the two villains vanished without a trace."

"A quick scan of the area showed evidence of the same energy signatures found in the area where Bakuda tore open a rift between this universe and another, leading me to suspect that the two villains are lost in the multiverse."

"A giant robot equipped with nuclear weapons and apparent extradimensional technology is far beyond the capabilities that Uber and Leet usually demonstrate," the director acknowledged. "Someone gave them a handout or a leg up, and we need to find out who."

"It was the Poisons," Ashley added immediately.

"What?"

"So, uh, I guess this counts as mine and Rose Red's part of the debrief?" Ashley asked. "We'd just got the message to head to either HQ or the panic room office, and we were on our way down when we got ambushed. I asked the Poison Bonesaw a question, partly to distract her until help could get there and partly because I'd asked about Bonesaw before and Armmaster told me that they weren't sure about whether or not she killed her family." Ashley gestured to the man. "But Rose Red ripped her off of me before I could finish and then when she managed to stab me any way she uh..."

"I panicked and crushed her," Rose Red added apologetically.

"After I started to get over the shock from being stabbed, Mister Snuggles told me about this thing that symbiotes can do where they basically eat a piece of another symbiote to get its memories, and... It's not something I ever want to do again, but..." Ashley shivered. "I spaced out and basically saw this Bonesaw's whole life. They had a Hybrid Uber and a Scorn Leet in their group when the Poisons took them, those Poisons got destroyed, but the Poison Skitter gave that Leet's notes and some tech from my world to this Uber and Leet and asked them to do something big as a distraction."

"Is there anything at all in your contract that forbids me from lecturing you on how absolutely stupid trying to absorb a serial killer's memories via alien cannibalism is?" The Director asked, seemingly resigned to the new status quo at least for now, though she clearly still felt it was ridiculous.

"I'll have to double-check and get back to you," Ashley said without a hint of sarcasm or irony. "But I don't think I need it. Losing my breakfast and passing out was enough of a lecture on that. But, while I'm talking about it... I don't remember everything, Mister Snuggles does but everything that wasn't important leaked out of my brain like water in a sieve, but there's something that I remember that I think is really important: Riley Davis did not kill her family. She got her powers that night and was trying to save them because Jack Slash convinced her that he'd let them live if she saved them enough times and... and..."

Ashley had to stop and take deep breaths. she closed her eyes even as tears managed to squeeze out. "Jack Slash did to Riley Davis what the Soviet Union did to Bucky Barnes."

"For those of us who don't live in your fantasy land," Shadow Stalker, still wrapped in the Crimson Bands, asked.

"Sorry," Ashley quickly apologized. "See, the Soviet Union was—"

"We had that here," Armsmaster quickly interrupted.

"It'd take me hours to explain the whole story, but Bucky Barnes was Captain America's partner and a good young man who went missing and was presumed dead during World War II." Ashley stopped to swallow a lump that was forming in her throat. "However, unknown to the Americans, he was rescued by the Soviet army, who identified him and then, as a cruel joke, kidnapped him and tortured him and brainwashed him and made him forget who he was so they could make him into a remorseless killer who did exactly what they wanted him to do. But it didn't work all the way, they had to keep re-brainwashing him," Ashley explained slowly, "and they eventually started putting their 'Winter Soldier' in cryosleep between missions to buy more time between re-uping the brainwashing."

"Bonesaw is like that. Riley Davis didn't choose to be a killer. If even half of what happened to the Bonesaw that got eaten by the Poison happened to this World's Bonesaw, then Bonesaw isn't a killer, she's a brainwashed child soldier being used as a murder weapon." Ashley took a deep breath, tears openly streaming down her face. "And Jack Slash is constantly reinforcing the conditioning because if he doesn't she starts feeling guilty about it and thinking about what really happened and even when... when... What she wants to do is like, super messed up but even with the full brainwashing she still wanted to make something that could stop those giant monsters that no one's been able to beat. How she wanted to do it was messed up but even after everything part of her still wanted to do something good and... She was five! Or six!" Ashley was yelling at this point. "She was an innocent little girl! Who... What kind of monster does something like that to a little girl!?"

It was at this point that Weaver moved to her foster sister's side and pulled her into a hug, letting the younger girl cry into her shoulder.

"Unfortunately," Miss Militia said clinically, "barring a miracle, that doesn't change anything. Bonesaw is too dangerous to capture alive and has been given an active kill order."

"Technically," Ms. Mystic interrupted, "the Nine are motivated in part by their ideologies which makes them terrorists. It'd be possible for someone to argue that Riley Davis is protected under international laws regarding child soldiers."

"Even if it doesn't change anything and she still needed to be..." Ashley couldn't bring herself to say 'killed.' "People should know the truth. The innocent little girl that she used to be deserves at least that much justice, right."

No one answered Ashley, as that was a hard question to answer. The debriefing more or less over, everyone went their separate ways after Ms. Mystic stated that she'd be returning to her own time soon and then allowed Shadow Stalker to get up.

 **Snuggles the Symbiote**

 _"I don't know, my body just moved on its own."_

After the debriefing, Dean had gotten a change of clothes and was now just walking, trying to get used to supporting himself with an old fashioned cane or walking stick and wondering if he could pass the disguised Mjolnir off as an old family heirloom, but his thoughts kept coming back to the one memory of Thor's that was still crystal clear.

Loki Laufeyson, the adopted brother and enemy of Thor, The God of Evil, Lies, and Chaos... Throwing himself in front of a golden beam of energy fired from the mouth of some great worm or wyrm and, receiving a wound meant for Thor, dying in his brother's arms.

Dean shook his head. He'd have time to think about that later. He really should be getting home. Back to his family... His family who only cared about him in so far as he obeyed their wishes, who forced him to drink a vial of strange chemicals because it would give him powers that would help him cheat in business... Not that he ever wanted to. Made him lie about where his powers came from. His family who betrayed his trust again and again and again.

Not for the first time, he wished for a better family, and his thoughts turned to Vicky, the only person he'd ever opened up to who had never betrayed him. He hadn't seen her since her sister's funeral... He'd visit with her. He'd make time for her, and if his parents complained, well, he was a God now and the insurance on his father's fancy new sports car didn't cover acts of God.

It was then that he realized that, in his wandering, he'd found himself in the Legal department. He turned to leave, not wanting to disturb the clerks and lawyers, but then he met the eye of a handsome man by a water cooler. He wasn't the same, but that black hair. Those green eyes...

The man looked at the old fashioned walking stick that Dean was using to compensate for his bad leg, then looked him right in the eye and mouthed "Hello, little brother."

 **Snuggles the Symbiote**

It was a simple enough spell, really. At least as far as time magic went. As a joke, she'd even worked it into the dress slippers she wore with her tux. A click of her heels and Lisa vanished from PRT ENE Headquarters in the year 2011 and reappeared in Avengers Mansion, Bet, in the year 2016.

More specifically, the living room. The room she most thought of when she thought of home these days.

No sign of Taylor or Dean, but Missy was sitting in the recliner, seemingly having been starring directly at Lisa's arrival point with a massive shit-eating grin.

Sprawled out on the couch in her casual wear (gym shorts and a tank top, a far cry from the more traditionally feminine outfits of her youth,) was the practically giant, musclebound sixteen-year-old Ashley. And sprawled out upon Ashley was Gremlin. The petite, reptilian girl's batlike ear flapped while her spaded tail flicked. Clearly she'd crawled upon the napping Ashley to warn her cold blood, as was the young mutant's arrangement with her best friend, and fallen asleep while leaching her friend's excess body heat. Or maybe they'd laid down together, there was an empty cookie jar not far from the couch. Either way, one of Ashley's arms was wrapped around the smaller girl.

Grace was older than Ashley by a little over a year, but Ashley had always been rather protective of the reptilian mutate and Lisa didn't need her original Parahuman powers to know that the unfairly muscular girl's arm was placed as much for protection as it was a gesture of platonic affection. That it also showed their twin handprint tattoos side by side was probably unintended.

"Lame," Missy said. "We were expecting you to show up pissed that no one told you that it only took Ashley a few seconds to figure you out. We were waiting for you but then they fell asleep."

"Sorry to disappoint," Lisa snarked, "but I'm utterly exhausted. I'll yell at Bleeding Heart when she and snuggle-lizard wake up. I can't bring myself to interrupt them when they're like this."

"Love you too, Lisa," Ashley mumbled.

Lisa headed off to her room, to change out of her suit and get some much-needed sleep, but she couldn't help but give a genuine smile. It was good to be home.


	28. Chapter 20

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

The good thing about being out of the house for about a week? The contractors were able to pick up the pace and get Ashley's basement bedroom done by the time we were ready to move back in. Don't get me wrong, my foster sister is adorable, but it's nice to be able to sleep in my own bed instead of a sleeping bag or a bunk at HQ.

Well, I wasn't there now. I'd celebrated the return to normalcy by picking back up with my morning jogging routine. Even if my normal routine wasn't enough to really get my blood pumping anymore, with the enhancements I'd gotten when I awoke from my coma, it was nice to feel the cool morning air flow through my hair again after the last few weeks. It was a nice morning. A little foggy, but not too bad. Honestly, I'd been away from this for so long that I could have sworn that the air smelled sweet.

As I ran, my thoughts turned over those weeks. How much of that chaos and weirdness had just been normal Cape business and how much of it was specifically because of some influence from Ashley's homeworld? Ashley had acted like it was more or less normal other than that last bit targetting her specifically but was that normal cape stuff in her world or was there extra stuff on top of cape business?

I was pulled from my thoughts and forced to stop in my jog by the vibration of my Wards issued phone. Dad hadn't been happy about it and, frankly, I'd been a little uncomfortable with it at first... Cellphones had been a touchy subject since my Mom died in a car accident she could have avoided if she wasn't texting. But the PRT needed to be able to quickly contact us in case of emergency and a cell phone was more discrete than a tinker-tech communicator.

I'd gotten an alert. Shadow Stalker, or someone like her, had been witnessed using her powers out of costume last night and someone got a picture. Her breaker state was enough to protect her ID, or at least no one had put two-and-two together if anyone recognized her at all, but apparently, she hadn't gone home last night and wasn't responding to attempts to make contact. Command wanted us to call in if any of us knew where she was or what she was doing last night. I didn't call in because I had no clue, I hadn't seen her since the debriefing the other day. Honestly, I figured that the psychopath had gotten fed up with the rules she had to follow instead of going to prison and gone AWOL, but I couldn't actually say that without explaining my history with her and I didn't want to get into that. If it turns out that she's done something wrong, then I'll turn over my evidence and make complaints. Otherwise, well, she can't hurt me anymore and I'm the one the Trio always hurt the worst.

I'd already been near the end of my circuit when I got the call, so while I didn't exactly have the momentum behind me to jog the rest of the way it didn't take long to get home.

Dad was up when I got back. Getting ready to get back to work, doing his best to look nice. Uber and Leet's robot had damaged some buildings. No casulties, thank God, but a few million in property damage. Between that and the street being torn up by the Poisons in the business district, there was a bit of clean up and construction work to do. Not enough for everyone, of course, but Dad had said that today was the day he put in the DWA's bid for a cut.

I greeted him with a "hey" as I got in, but before I could go further the phone rang.

Dad stepped over to the phone and answered. "What..? Alan, calm down, you're talking too fast... Oh... Oh... No, I haven't seen her." He turned back to me pulling the receiver back. "Taylor? Alan says that Emma was studying at a friend's house last night and never came home. They didn't come here last night, did they?"

"No," I said quickly. "I mean, I don't think so..." I started checking in and around the house with bugs, looking for any signs of the Trio or anything that shouldn't be there while more metaphorical bugs began squirming in my belly. Sophia being missing was one thing, but Sophia and Emma both going missing the same night meant one of three things: They'd run off together, either to join a gang or to confirm a theory I'd formed about Sophia a year ago but quickly dismissed; They were planning something _huge_ , or something had happened to them.

"No, there's no sign of them... Wait," I hadn't checked the basement, Ashley's room. I'd been thorough when I removed my nest of widows, clearing out any other bugs that had been down there to, so there hadn't been any down there when I started looking. And then, when I got some bugs down there, just before I could make out the beginning of images, some of the bugs smelled something that translated as metal in my mind.

And then Ashley let out a bloodcurdling scream of terror with something thudding against the floor and I didn't wait for visual to come in, I bolted for the basement between frozen heartbeats.

The first thing I saw, which let me breathe, was that Ashley was okay. Physically, that is, she was clutching the ceiling with her eyes bolted shut in fear.

Then I looked down to find whatever it was that had made her jump and the smell of blood hit me. There, on her bed... There was Emma. Madison, too.

Or, at least, their heads. There was bruising where their necks were cut and, steeling my nerves and stepping around their faces were twisted in horror.

"...Sophia?" I asked out loud. "What did you _do?_ " She must have snapped or something. I'll be honest. I didn't know how to feel about this. I hated them. Emma betrayed me and these were two of the people who'd made my life a living hell for the past few years, but she'd been my best friend once and Madison was a bitch at the worst. Neither of them deserved this.

And, as much as I hated to admit it, some small part of me, some part of myself that I felt disgusted with, complained that we'd literally just moved back in.

"Ashley? Are you okay? Can you get down on your own, or do I need to come up and get you? You... We can't stay in here right now."

She didn't answer, and I turned to climb the wall and get her and that's when I saw the huge message scrawled in blood on the far wall.

" ** _CARNAGE RULES!_** "

 **Snuggles the Symbiote**

Once I'd gotten Ashley upstairs and swaddled in a clean blanket, I'd called the PRT while Dad... Dad did the harder job.

Afterword, we waited outside while waiting for investigators or a forensics team or whoever.

Alan... Alan had come over after Dad gave him the news. I don't know what he'd been planning to do or what he'd expected to happen, but what had ended up happening was that while I held my foster sister, still in shock the whole time, I watched a grown man collapse to his knees and cry like a baby. He'd just barely composed himself when the forensics team walked out with the... Coolers and loaded them up to be carried away as evidence. It didn't take a genius to realize what was in them and Alan broke down all over again.

Part of me wanted to say something to him, but what could I say?

"Why...?" Ashley whispered as she finally stirred from her shocked state. "Why didn't my Spider-Sense go off? Why didn't _your_ Spider-sense go off?"

"Well, that's an easy enough question ta answer," spoke a man's voice in some kind of southern accent from right in front of Ashley and I.

And in that instant, it started fading into view, from the ground up, a seven-or-eight-foot skeleton coated in something blood-red and slimy with spikes and tendrils jutting off. It looked at us with jagged-crescent lenses that glowed an evil yellow and pulled apart thin not-lips to form a manic grin, like a demented Chesire Cat, full of curved, dagger-like fangs before a throat glowing the same yellow.

"Ya see kiddo? Spidey-Sense don't work worth dick on symbiotes," it said in demented cheerfulness.

My eyes went wide in shock. It'd been here the whole time, waiting for, for some reason. Or it was clairvoyant and it could teleport, or something.

Ashley clearly recognized whoever this was, because she quickly squeaked "oh fuck!" and I had the feeling that that was the most appropriate thing to say.


	29. Chapter 21

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

Carnage was here. Carnage was here the whole time and I hadn't notice and he killed that Emma girl who set off my Spider-Sense at the mall and her friend and left them in my bed and... "Oh fuck," I squeaked. I didn't normally swear but I couldn't think of anything else to say.

Taylor grabbed me tighter and started pulling me back away from Carnage.

"Ya ever try somethin' new and it turns out better than ya ever coulda hoped for?" Carnage said, pretending to be friendly. "I didn't know ya knew those kids, I just saw a couple of teenaged girls dressed like whores out and about at night and decided 'eh, they'll do.' Third one was a slippery piece of shit, though."

In a few seconds, Mr. Barnes's face went from sad and crying to red and angry. In the corner of my eye, I could see him start to sort of lurch-run right for...

In the next second, I leaped from Taylor's arms and tackled Mr. Barnes to the ground. Just in time, too, becuase less than a second later a giant ax at the end of Carnage's hand whooshed right through the air where Mr. Barnes neck had been right before I tackled him.

"You need to get out of here," I said to Mr. Barnes. "Everyone needs to get the hell out of here and, and... does anyone know how to call those Triumvarate people?"

"Why I see that my reputation precedes me," Carnage said. "Well, kinda. I ain't quite Cletus, ain't quite Carnage... Papers' been callin' me Bloodbath. S'good a name as any."

And then, fast as lightning, Carnage grabbed me and hoisted me up by my ankle. "So, Jackie-Boy suggested that I let the fear marinate before going in for the slaughter... Since his little brat's been stealin' my leftovers, I figure I'll steal her kill. I'm in a good mood though, kiddo, so I'll let ya pick." He grew two more arms, little kid-sized ones out from the front of his rib cage. He had one raise a finger. "Option one, I cover ya in gasoline and burn ya up, alive, like a piggy on a barbecue, but your friends get to live another day as long as they don't do anything stupid... Or option numero dos," he had the other hand raise a finger. "I kill ya nice and quick... right after I finish butchering everyone else here alive? Ya got three seconds to pick."

And then Taylor threw up a bunch of spiders on him. He didn't seem to notice as they started biting into him. "Oh, sorry. Looks like your uh... Foster sister, was it? Just picked for ya." He dropped me and I landed on my back and I could see him shift all of his arms into long, thin, bladed things. He smiled wide and turned to Taylor. "This is gonna be so much fun," he said and then started laughing like a crazy person.

So, while my heart froze in my chest, I did the only thing I could think of. I summoned a thing-fist and punched him in the groin as hard as I could.

He oofed. "Seriously? Kiddo, I'm basically a skeleton wrapped in and filled with symbiote goo." He sounded more annoyed than anything else, which... Made me kind of upset that my signature move wasn't gonna cut it when I needed it the most. "Ya'd get better results trying to break one of Wolverine's bones."

And then he stabbed me through the shin. I'd been stabbed before, but this felt... a lot worse. It _burned_. And I could feel the blade shifting around and wrapping around my leg. I wasn't crying, it just started raining all of a sudden. I didn't scream either, but Taylor still punched Carnage like I had. He didn't seem to notice.

He lifted me up by my leg again. "But since you're so eager... Any last words?"

I spat on him. "Gabh transna ort fhéin, cúl tóna! Agus do chapall freisin!" I wasn't sure if that last bit was right. Grandpa hadn't taught me how to say "and the horse you rode in on" before he died so I had to improvise and I wasn't anywhere near fluent. I finished by spitting on him again.

"Fiesty little shit, ain't ya?" Carnage said conversationally. "Well, might as well get ta the meat of it," and then spun around and whipped me into the air, letting go of me at the last second and sending me flying. I had just enough time to feel the wind pushing against my face and shift into my costume before he was behind me. He slammed two fists into my back and sent me speeding back down with a crash.

My first thought upon landing was that those were some very pretty birdies. My second thought, as I shook the crazy out of my head and pushed myself up was that I really hoped that whoever owned the minivan I'd landed on had insurance that covered the roof caving in from a Ward being volleyballed into it.

I climbed down, slowly, and everything hurt. As soon as I stood up the leg he'd stabbed me through felt like it was full of red hot glass and I fell from lack of support. "Un... Mister Snuggles, why hasn't that healed yet?"

" _The one designated Carnage has left a portion of its mass within your body and it is resisting attempts to assimilate. This one will not be able to heal Ashley's leg wound until it has purged the foreign matter."_

Well, that's just great. I started levitating becuase I can't walk with one leg, which was a mistake, becuase Carnage landed right in front of me a little later and punched me with a fist like a piston and, since I was already in the air, that meant that I flew _far_...

...Headfirst through a live tree.

"Uhn... I hope I don't get brain damage from this."

"I wouldn't worry about it, Kiddo." Wait, where was he? And then came the sick-shattery, crunchy sound and my legs both hurting a lot more and I figured out where he was.

"...Why you callin' me 'Kiddo?' " I slurred.

"Becuase I don't respect ya enough to learn your name, same reason anyone would use a nickname that much," Carnage said casually while he lifted me up by the neck. He shifted his other hand into what looked like a set of garden shears. "Now, which hand do ya want me to cut off first?"

As fast I could, I formed my claws and drove two of them into his eyes. This made Carnage yelp and drop me and I summoned my ocktacles. I used two of them to hold myself up until my legs healed and slammed the other two into Carnage's chest to push him back and give me room to breathe.

"I'm fighting a complete psychopath with stronger versions of all of our powers and years of experience with them... Mister Snuggles, we've got dragon wings, right? Can we breathe fire?"

 _"Ashley, if this one possessed any ability to resist and control one of the banes of the Klyntar, it would have made Ashley aware of the fact."_

"Well, there goes that ide-Ah!" Carnage made a knife out of himself and threw it at me and it caught me in the gut.

And it was trying to wriggle deeper inside me so I grabbed it and, wincing and wheezing the whole time, ripped it out before it could bury itself in my organs except... Except it looked like part of it broke off. That's not—

My thought was cut off by Carnage sucker-punching me in the head. "Little tip, Kiddo? Don't sit around talking to yourself in the middle of a fight."

I coughed. I think some blood came out. "So, you said you're not quite Cletus or Carnage," I said. fighting wasn't working so maybe if I kept him talking help would come and... That was a drone camera. About thirty feet behind Carnage was a drone. Was it filming this whole thing? I put it out of my mind, something to work out if I got out of this alive. "So, it's just you?"

"Yeah, it's just me. No one else in here," He admitted as he grabbed my arm hard enough to pull my shoulder out of its thing and pulled me up again.

"Then you must be lonely," I said.

This was the _wrong_ thing to say because it made him frown and he dug a claw into my already broken leg and twisted it. The good news was I was at the point where I was so hurt that I didn't feel more pain. The bad news was that I was at the point where I was so hurt that I _couldn't_ feel more pain.

I don't know what he was planning next, becuase someone threw a brick at Carnage's head. Carnage twisted his head without turning and I followed his gaze to see a middle-aged man dressed in work clothes. I didn't recognize him. I didn't know where he came from. But he looked angry, and he was shouting. "Leave the kid alone you piece of—"

I wanted to tell him to run. To save himself. That this wasn't a fight he wanted to pick. But I didn't get a chance to. It was so fast. Carnage let go of me and jumped to the man and raised an ax-hand and...

Blood. So much blood.

I was wrong about not being able to hurt anymore. That man... he was just trying to do the right thing and he, and he...

I saw red. And I saw the evil in Carnage's black, wretched heart and the blood that stained his murderous hands. It didn't matter how much I was hurt and that my bones were broken. All that mattered was that Carnage had to pay. He had to hurt. The man who'd tried to help me... Emma and Madison... Everyone else Carnage had hurt... They all deserved _Vengence._

Punching. Kicking. Clawing. Biting. Slashing. Headbutts. I drew on the memories of the Riley Davis who became the Poison so I could form the blades and tendrils we couldn't form on our own. To know where to cut and stab and tear to make Carnage _hurt_.

When my head started to clear, I was standing above Carnage's armless, legless torso and my mask was off. This time, _I_ picked _him_ up by the neck.

"You know, I've been wondering for a while where the whole fire-eyes evil-o-vison came from... And it's probably obvious in hindsight, but I think that somewhere along the lines my Symbiote got mixed up with a Ghost Rider." I gave an angry smile, trying to be scary. "So... Do you have a soul, Carnage... Sorry, Bloodbath? Let's find out. _Look into my eyes!_ "

"Kido," he said one while looking me in the eyes defiantly, "even if ya do have Ghost Rider powers, just having one doesn't mean ya have them all. I can tell just by looking that ya don't have the Penance Stare. Two, even if ya did, the Penance Stare don't work on symbiotes either. Symbiotes are immune to a lot of that stuff, turns out. For three, ya just wasted the last dredges of whatever adrenaline kick got ya going again." He finished by making his tongue get really long and stabbing me in the left eye with it.

I screamed and let Canange... Bloodbath go so I could cover my eye and... Yeah, I was bleeding. Bleeding bad, and I think I saw Carnage swallowing something while his arms and legs grew back.

And all the hurt from before was coming back, and I was getting really tired and... how was standing? My legs were still broken.

"Mister Snuggles, is my eye gone? I can't tell." Why was I focusing on stuff like that when I was about to pass out in front of someone who wanted to kill me? I couldn't even understand Mister Snuggles' response. I fell down and... Hey, there's the drone from before. Why was it glowing blue?

Bloodbath stepped up over me and turned his arm into a giant curved knife like you'd gut a fish with. "And now it's time for the game to end."

Before he could do anything though, the drone exploded into a blue-white portal and something red and black came flying out really fast.

With a shwing and a snikt, two katana blades tore through Bloodbath's chest. Deadpool was standing behind him now. What was Deadpool doing here?

I could see more people walking out... Ms. Marvel? Best Wolverine and Honey Badger? Uh, I don't know what no-pants-ghost-marshmallow lady was called and I thought that Energizer was retired?

Three more people came out but I was starting to lose it... All I could make out was that the shortest one had a V on her chest and... Spider-Man! Spider-Man came out of the portal after them. Spider-Man was here, everything was gonna be okay!

"And we're officially in another Universe," V-chest said. "Tony Stark's copyright doesn't carry over so I can legally say: Avengers, Assemble!"

I could hear blasties and shooties and stabbies and then Spider-Man was leaning over me. "Are you okay?" He asked me.

"No," I slurred. "Everything hurts and... Night-night time is coming." Oh God, I was acting like a child in front of Spider-Man.

"Don't worry, Ashley, you're gonna be okay. I'm gonna make sure of it."

I giggled. "Spider-Man knows my name." And then everything went dark.


	30. Chapter 22

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

Beeping. I could hear beeping. Why was I hearing beeping?

 _"Because we are in the room designated infirmary in the structure designated Rig once again."_

"Huh?" I keep forgetting that Mister Snuggles can read my thoughts sometimes.

 _"This one believes that the proper terminology for what occurred is that Ashley 'had the shit beaten out of her and overdosed on her own adrenaline again.' "_

"Mister Snuggles, don't swear," I slurred and opened my eyes while everything that happened with Bloodbath came back to me. I could only see out of one eye. I put a hand up to my left eye and felt a bandage and some kind of padding. "Also, I didn't catch your answer earlier, is my eye gone?"

 _"This one chooses not to answer on the grounds that it will not be relevant once Ashley finishes recuperating."_

"Mister Snuggles if my eye is gone I want to..." Where was that clicking sound coming from? A schlict or a...

Snikt!

I sat up and turned to face the source of the sound. At first, I'd thought I'd been alone in here, but the was another girl, in yellow body-armor, sitting on a bed on the far wall. She looked Klara's age with long black hair and scars on her face. Two under her eyes, one under her cheek, and one on her forehead. Every so often a foot-long spike of sharp bone would rip out of her hand, and then she'd pull it back in.

She saw I was looking at her and nodded. "Sup?" Snikt.

I blinked... Or I guess winked? "Honey Badger?"

"I'm going by Scout now," she casually explained.

I thought about it for a second. "Honey Badger is a better name."

"Your opinion is noted," she said with a smile, "but I just decided that the cutesy name wasn't working for me anymore."

"Your sister's my favorite X-man," I said, trying to make small talk. "And of all the... Four people who've gone by Wolverine, she's the best."

"I'm sure she'll be happy to hear that," Scout said while continuing to pop and unpop her claw. Then she smiled mischievously. "Who's your second favorite?"

"Genesis," I said quickly.

"Oh..." Scout sounded disappointed. Did she...?

"Sorry."

"It's fine. I don't really interact with Evan much but he seems cool." She shrugged. "Can I ask why though?"

"Mostly the same reason I like your sister," I explained. "She was born to be a killer but chooses to be a hero, Genesis is a clone of one of the most unrepentantly evil men in history but chooses to be good."

"...You know, that applies to me, too..." Scout said while looking up and away

"So, uh, why are you here?" I asked.

"Here in this room or here in general?" She asked.

"...Both?" I said with a shrug.

"Val Richards found a disturbance in space-time and basement full of dead clones, sent out a flyer for help, we found video of you and some of the clones getting sucked into another universe, and we decided to try and do the responsible thing." She gestured to me. "Val sent in a drone, saw you fighting Carnage, got us all together and it seems we got here just in time."

I thought back to the man who'd thrown the brick. "...Yeah... Uh, how did Spider-Man know my name?"

"The people who were doing the cloning and harvesting you for MGH? They had a copy of your medical records," Scout explained. "We ended up reading them when we were investigating. You've got an interesting birthmark."

"Uh, thanks," I said. Was she trying to sound creepy?

"As far why I'm here in this room," she gestured around, "apparently the Government Agency that regulates superheroes here has a contract that says they have to ask you specifically first on any issues, and well... You ever hear the term 'malicious compliance?' I get the feeling that the fat lady you're working for isn't happy about the contract. She's got us all, and who I'm assuming is your foster sister, in a room with your Captain America rip off." she rolled our eyes. "Won't even let us introduce ourselves. Threatened to arrest Val when she tried to explain who we were and why we're here."

"I mean, isn't she four years old?" She was three when the Richards family vanished and it's been a little over a year.

"She's about my biological age now," Scout said. "Apparently they were gone for five years from their perspective. Laura was complaining about the kids she used to babysit being an angsty teen and an arrogant know-it-all all of a sudden when she taught I wasn't listening."

I started counting on my fingers. "That doesn't add up. You're thirteen, she should be nine."

"Wade says not to think about it too hard."

"No," I started. "That's not fair. I should be older than her and..." I was interrupted by a yawn. Stupid adrenaline OD. Last time it took me three days before I recovered from the crash.

"If it makes you feel any better, you're technically older than me," Scout said with an awkward smile. "If you don't count the artificial aging then... Uh, Alchemex has been around a couple years, tops..." She sounded confused now. "Unless it was still Oscorp when they started, uh... I don't know my birthday" That was one of the saddest things I'd ever heard. "I'm somewhere between five and zero."

"Oh... Kay," I said. "Uh, what happened with Bloodbath? The Carnage clone."

"Mania set him on fire and he ran for it," Scout said. Mania, did I know who Mania was? "Hellfire burns up evil symbiotes real good, apparently. Anti-Venom went after him but he got away. The rest of us stayed back until we could make sure the injured party, that is, you, got help... Then Miss flag code violation showed up and brought us here."

"...You know, I asked why you were here in this room but I don't think you explained it."

"Sorry. After a couple of hours, I got bored and gave the lady babysitting us the ultimatum that she either let me leave to use the bathroom or I'd pee all over the floor, then snuck off once she let me leave." She held up something white she'd had next to her that I hadn't seen earlier. "There's a small laundry room three floors down from here," She unfurled the white thing and... That was the undershirt I'd put on this morning. I could tell it was the same one becuase it had a hole where I'd gotten stabbed in the belly and a bloodstain around it. "This is yours, right? It smells like you."

"Yeah." I lifted up the cheap hospital blanket I was under and noticed that I was in a hospital gown with casts on my legs. I think I had more bandages around my belly, too. "Mister Snuggles, why aren't my wounds fixed?"

 _"This one is still working to purge the remnants of the hostile symbiote. If this one lets up for even a moment, the remnants could cause further damage."_

"Well, that sucks... How long do you think that's gonna take?"

 _"If this one knew it would tell you."_

"How come I'm not in horrible agony?"

 _"This one has disabled your ability to experience pain in the short term."_

"You can do that? Why don't you tell me these things!?"

"It's like being in an elevator with someone on a cellphone," Scout deadpanned. "Anyway," she said while tossing my undershirt over, "since they're not gonna let us say or do anything until they can consult you, and they can't consult you until you get out... Want me to smuggle you out of here?"

I pointed to my broken legs. "Do you have a wheel—" I yawned again. I probably needed to go back to sleep. "A wheelchair?"

"Oh, I can fix that," Scout said with a smile. "I just need to borrow your IV tube."

"IV tube?"

And then I looked closer at my arm and saw the tube leading down from a stand next to my bed down to a needle buried in my flesh. My blood froze, my heart skipped a beat... I tried to reach over and rip the damned thing out but I couldn't move and...

 _"Ashley, this one strongly suggests not removing the thing supplying you with the fluids needed to keep your blood pressure high enough to function. This one would prefer to host in Ashley, not Ashley's anemic corpse."_

"If you do the thing," I said slowly. "Does it mean the," my voice cracked, "the needle comes out?"

"Yeah," she replied. "Are... Are you afraid of needles."

I looked away. I could feel my face heating up. What kind of hero was afraid of needles? I lied. "No." Just because my team knew, that didn't mean anyone else had to."

"Well, okay then," Scout said evenly. "Now I need to be standing higher up than you so the gravity part will work so scooch down so I can stand over you."

I slid down as far as I could go on the bed, but it wasn't very far, and Scout came over and climbed up in the bed so that she was facing the wall with her feet by my shoulders. And then I heard a snikt and the sound of something carving into flesh.

"What are you doing?" I asked, concerned.

"Putting my blood in you," she said matter-of-factly.

It took me a second to process that. "Why?"

"Becuase putting Wolverine blood in people gives them a Wolverine healing factor and a boosted immune system for a few minutes," she said in the same tone.

"Yeah, I know that, but I've already got a healing factor," I explained. "I'm gonna get better eventually so..."

"This will make it happen faster," she explained like it was obvious. "I once got turned into a Brood Queen and my healing factor completely recreated my body exactly and made me rip out of Brood-Me like _Aliens_ in reverse." There was a moment of silence. "Semi-Related, if you're planning to form a rock band, I've got dibs on the names 'Brood Chest Burster" 'Instant Reincarnation' and "'Naked in Space.' " Well, okay then.

"Are we even compatible blood types?" I asked. "I'm B positive, I can only take B and O type blood."

"It doesn't matter," she said cheerfully. "The healing factor cancels out the wrong blood type problems. Besides, there's a fifty-fifty chance that my blood's safe for you regardless." She was way too casual about this. "Now, if I screw up jamming this thing into my artery I could make an air bubble and give you a heart attack or stroke, so I need to focus." I could see blood dripping down the wall, she was making a mess and people were gonna think a murder happened in here.

"I'm having second thoughts about this," I snarked.

"Too late!" I nervously looked at the tube as red fluid started flowing down it.

"Mister Snuggles, can you stop an air bubble in my blood from killing me?"

"You're gonna be fine," Scout reassured. "By the way, my blood has self-replicating nanobots that remove the ability to feel pain, but the side effects killed most of my sisters." Why was she so casual about that? "My healing factor means I'm probably okay, and yours is probably enough to keep you good, but it's something you keep in mind and consider whether you want to get rid of them."

"You couldn't have said something about that before?" I asked, annoyed. "Mister Snuggles?"

 _"This one will purge the nanomachines as soon as your body is fully repaired."_

"Thanks."

"By the way, would you like a necklace made of ears?" Who asks these things? "I got bored, made a necklace out of my ears, and Laura wants me to get rid of it."

"Why would you do that?" I said while facepalming.

"If we're gonna spend any amount of time together," Scout began, "which I hope we will becuase you seem nice, then the first thing you're gonna learn about me is that I have weird thoughts and a warped sense of humor. Also, I have a pet wolverine. His name is Jonathan and he's awesome. Would you like to meet him sometime?"

I thought about it. "Yes, I would like to meet him."

"It's a date." More time was passing. I was feeling less tired now. "So I know your real name, mine's Gabby by the way, but what's your mutant name?"

"I don't have a mutant name," I said. "I think they're stupid and personally I'd rather be known for being me than for being a mutant." I sighed. "I'm a mutant, I... Identify as a mutant, more or less, but that's not all I am. My mutant power is that I'm a sick cripple who's probably gonna die before I turn eighteen. You want me to fight crime while calling myself 'Gimpy?' "

"You clearly feel strongly about this, and I respect that," Scout, or, Gabby began. "I just wanted to know what name you use when you're in costume."

"Oh. Cuddlebug."

"Aww," Gabby squeaked, "that's adorable."

"Thank yo—" I started coughing. Badly. Enough that I had to sit up. The coughing almost hurt. Why did it almost hurt? Mister Snuggles said he turned off my pain receptors.

A little while later, it felt like I was gonna throw up, and with one last hacking cough, something red and slimy jumped from my throat and flew to the wall opposite me. It slithered for few seconds then froze and fell to the ground, twitching.

And then a nurse or orderly or someone who worked in the infirmary here walked in and looked directly at Gabby and I.

"This is exactly what it looks like," I said while pointing up to Gabby. "I can feel my broken bones melding back together so if you could discharge me, that'd be great." Now that the pieces of Bloodbath were gone, nothing was stopping my healing and honestly, I couldn't remember feeling better.

"The blood on the wall is mine," Gabby added. "Sorry." I couldn't see her but she started grunting. "Okay, I regenerated around the IV tube. I think it's part of my body now, this is gonna take a second."

There was another snikt and then more sounds of flesh being cut up. I'm pretty sure she got some of her blood in my hair this time.

Mister Snuggles whispered something in my ear. "Also, I'm gonna need a drool cup. And that," I pointed down to the piece of Bloodbath I'd hacked up, "is gonna need to be incinerated."

The nurse or orderly gave out a long, exasperated sigh. "This fucking city." And then she left.

Gabby climbed down, plucked the IV out of my arm, which lifted a stone out of my belly (I looked away so she couldn't see how relieved I was.) And then she used her claws to slash off my casts.

I sat up, rubbed my legs, and flexed my knees, ankles, and toes. Yep, everything seemed to be working. The only thing left to do was check my eye.

Peeling the bandage off... Yeah, I could see. "So, was my eye gone Mister Snuggles."

 _"Why does it matter?"_

Well, I wasn't getting an answer from him. I climbed out of bed, ditched the hospital gown, and pulled on my undershirt. It didn't have that much blood, I could clean it myself later.

Gabby was behind me. "So, about that birthmark...?"

"What about it?"

"Uh... Look, I only found out about it when we were investigating since uh, there was a picture of it in your medical record and uh..." While she was talking, I had Mister Snuggles form my costume over my clothes and turned around. She was looking around awkwardly. "The others didn't want to tell you if it came up, but I think you deserve to know if you don't already... Uh."

"...What?" People only said things like that when it was bad.

"So you said Genesis was your second favorite X-Man?" She changed the subject. "You might want to bump him up."

"Why?"

"Yeah, uh... You're related to him."

I scoffed. "Yeah right." Genesis was a clone. The only way I could be related to him is if I was related to... I went wide-eyed. "Oh."

"Yeah. That's the Clan Akkaba symbol," Gabby explained awkwardly. "It's the mark of people that are descended from Apocalypse."

"I'm an epsilon class mutant with an inherent disability as part of my power," I said slowly. "You might as well be telling a Jewish person that they're related to the Red Skull."

"I mean, it's not quite that bad," Gabby started.

I sat back down on the hospital bed. And then, I started laughing. Laughing hard.

"What's so funny?" Gabby asked nervously.

"I got the X-Gene from my Daddy," I said between laughs. "He got it from my Grandpa, who thinks he got it from his grandpa, who was the Bastard son of an Englishman who had the exact same mark behind his ear and used to get drunk and rant about Egyptians." I laughed a little more. "You get it? The joke? The irony?" I laughed so hard it _hurt._ "The reason I'm weak and sick and tired all the time? The reason I'm probably gonna die of an infection before I grow up? It's because I'm descended from a guy whose power is a perfect, immortal God-Body." I was laughing so hard I was almost crying. "Who is a living embodiment of the exact opposite of everything I've ever stood for or believed in."

My whole life is a cruel joke.

At somepoint, I'd stopped laughing. I was still making sounds though... I wasn't crying though. Heroes don't cry.

Gabby hugged me though. She was a good hugger. "It's not the end of the world. There are lots of heroes that are related to evil people. And hey, you might secondary mutate and get something cool out of it."

"Maybe."

 **Snuggles the Symbiote**

"Hey, look who I found on my way back from the bathroom," Gabby introduced as we walked into the room where everyone was being kept.

Best Wolverine and Energizer and Deadpool and... color Inverted Agent Venom, with goth anime-hair girl-Venom next to him. Ghosty no pants McMarshmellow. I'm guessing that V Chest was Val Richards. Ms. Marvel was next to her.

And there was Spider-Man. Okay Ashley, play it cool. Don't ask to take a selfie with him until after we're done here. Don't squee or ask to hug him or for his autograph. There's a time and a place for that.

Miss Militia was here too, looking both bored and unhappy to see me, and there was Taylor. She'd changed into her costume but wasn't wearing her mask. I walked over to her and gave her a hug.

"You okay, Ashley?" She asked while hugging me back.

"Yeah," I said evenly. "I'm fine. All fixed up but... Excuse me." I unhugged her and spat up some green slime into the drool cup. The nurse or orderly or... I'd need to ask who she was and what she did later. She came back after a little bit and said everything was taken care of, then gave me the cup I asked for. She was nice.

"So, I understand that the bosses have given up on trying to weasel out of my iron-clad contract and are now being stupid about enforcing it? I've gotta be here to answer questions before we can do anything?"

"Yes, that's the gist of it," who I thought was Val Richards said while frustrated. "Please tell the nice woman to let us introduce ourselves and explain why we're here."

"And Weaver's here, becuase...?"

"Our contracts don't give us the guaranteed right to visit people in the infirmary and they were insisting that you needed your rest," Taylor said. "Since they took Dad back to the safehouse and you were in no position to debrief on the attack, I figured... But then... Well..."

I sat down next to Taylor, which put me right across from Spider-Man... I didn't think that through.

He gave a friendly wave and without thinking, I said: "Can I get a selfie with you?" Damn it!

He laughed. Not in a mean way. In a nice way. "Sure."

 _"Ashley, please stop thinking about the sound of young excitable humans squealing in joy."_


	31. Chapter 23

**Snuggles the Symbiote**

"And that's why we're here," the blonde girl, Brainstorm, finished.

In short, they were here to make sure the clones werren't causing too much chaos and to offer to bring home anyone who wanted to go back.

"So, the only thing left," the young woman who'd introduced herself as Laura(Ashley insisted she was Best Wolverine) said, "is whether Ashley wants to come home with us."

"And whether or not the symbiote she's wearing is safe," Spider-Man added.

The teenaged girl, Mania, had her costume peel away revealing... Yeah, Goth girl. dyed purple hair and a pierced lip. I wasn't sure what I was expecting. The tendrils stretched half-way across the table. Then, Mister Snuggles peeled away from Ashley and extended the rest of the way. The tendrils danced around each other without touching for a few moments.

"I'm sorry, what's going on?" No seriously, I had no idea what was going on.

Eventually, the respective symbiotes pulled back and reformed around their hosts. "It's on the up and up. It's a little corrupted, but it's stable. My symbiote could probably purify it in an hour or so."

"Why does your symbiote smell like sulfur?" Ashley asked.

Everyone was silent for a beat. "On second thought," Mania corrected, "maybe it'd be better to take her to the planet of the symbiotes to be purified?"

I put a hand on Ashley's shoulder. "I'm not so sure that Ashley should go back," I said. "From what she's said... Between the Sentinels. And the terrigen. And the Sapien League. And the Purifiers. And the Friends of Humanity. And the Canadian Death Camps. And the wendigos." The wendigos werren't exactly related to the others, but that's still a problem.

"Yeah, uh," Ashley began awkwardly. "Here I don't have to worry about someone finding out I'm a mutant and firebombing my house." Well, not becuase she's a mutant. An hour ago I'd got a warning on my phone that a neighbor had recorded everything from us coming out of the house to Bloodbath tossing Ashley in the air. Her ID and mine were exposed. I wasn't sure how to break that to her yet or what was going to happen, but Dad was back in the safe house and honestly, with the Slaughterhouse Nine in town I wasn't sure if we'd live long enough for it to matter.

...Well, wasn't that a morbid thought?

"The terrigen mists were dealt with a while ago," the girl a little older than me, Ms. Marvel, said. "Queen Medusa decided that terrigenisis wasn't worth even a single mutant death and destroyed the clouds herself after finding out they were about to saturate the atmosphere."

"...And she couldn't have done that as soon as she found out that mutants were dying?" Ashley said with a surprising amount of venom. Enough that it almost scared me. "Or just get a giant vacuum and collect her property instead of leaving it to mutate people? Hell, I heard that the mists were even killing most of the Nuhumans who got exposed."

Ms. Marvel grimaced. "Inhumans, please. Or Inhuman-Hybrid. Nuhuman was coined by some Inhuman supremacist terrorists."

"But you're cool," Ashley said confused. "you're my fourth favorite Hero from back home. If I use Inhuman to refer to you, then I have to associate you with the Inhuman Royals and screw the Inhuman Royals. Why would you want to be associated with people who released a biological weapon across the whole planet and then let thousands of people die becuase they were too lazy to clean it up? I mean, if you think Nuhuman is dumb I won't use it anymore, but..."

"That is an awkward conversation that I'd rather not have right now," the woman said, "becuase it would take a lot of time and be difficult to explain, and... So, I'm your fourth favorite, who are the first three?" She asked, awkwardly changing the subject.

"From three to one, The Thing, Captain America, and Spider-Man."

The eyeholes on Ms. Marvel's mask were wide enough that I could see her eyes narrowing. " _Which_ Spider-Man?" How many Spider-Men were there?

Ashley's eye lenses widened. She gestured to her phone, still out from her earlier selfie with the Spider-Man in this room, then to the man in question, then back to her phone. This prompted laughter from most of the room's inhabitants and a long, drawn-out sigh from Miss Militia.

"Okay," Ms. Marvel said. "That's fair. Those are good ones."

"Don't feel bad, Good MM," the... honestly my first thought was that he was a flamboyant ninja wannabe started. He called himself Deadpool. Did that make Miss Militia Bad MM? "Everyone knows that all the kids love Spider-Man."

"Not just kids," the white-clad soldier, Agent Anti-Venom said. "If it wasn't for Spider-Man?" He shrugged. "I'd probably just be an angry man in some dead-end job."

"Circling back," Deadpool continued, "while the wendigo problem can't be solved until my fellow Canadians stop killing and eating each other, the other stuff... Well."

"Professor X is alive and he and Magneto have a living island with portals all over the world that only mutants and people accompanied by mutants can get to," the unimaginatively named Gwenpool offered. "All mutants in the world are granted citizenship and all nations who recognize Krakoan sovereignty have granted all Krakoan citizens diplomatic immunity. Not only are hate groups no longer openly tolerated, but if she goes back then even if she doesn't live on the island she's basically above the law." She paused for a minute. "Also, the whole island gets free cable service. Really good free cable service."

"We're trying to get the island to grow pizza trees," the scared girl who introduced herself as Scout but told everyone to call Gabby added.

"Wait," Ashley said while gesturing to Gwenpool. "You're a mutant?"

"Yes," she said a little too quickly. "I am totally a mutant with high-level Esper and Reality Warping abilities. I thought I was someone from another universe where everyone was a comic book, but it turns out I just had a psychotic break when my powers came in." She was smiling a bit too wide. It sounded like she was trying too hard to convince people. "That is totally the truth and totally not me using my reality-warping powers to revise my origin story so I can't be killed off in a crossover event or erased from continuity. There was not an entire miniseries where I became self-destructively manic out of fear for my life that ended with me doing that."

I immediately concluded that Gwenpool was mentally ill.

Deadpool looked off into a corner. "And SB? You're not seeing Gwen's text in pink because the author is too lazy to figure out the hex code for the right shade of pink. FFN, you never saw it in pink to begin with."

"Wade? Can we not do this bit right now?" Spider-Man said with a palm over his face.

"Fine."

"Now, actually," Brainstorm said as she pulled up a bag, "we did bring some... Uh, which pocket did I put that in... Some things, if we found Ashley safe and sound... Some pamphlets for Krakoa," she said while pulling out some pamphlets showing an island and a bunch of people, some of whom looked like Case 53s, having fun. "And don't feel obligated to go. My brother's not too interested in it, either, but the mutant contingent of our group wants you to be able to make an informed decision." She pulled out a stack of documents. "These are the modifications that were made to your symbiote, which, well... If it was friendly then you need to know what it can potentially do and if not having a reference document on hand would have been nice."

She slid the documents and pamphlets across the table to Ashley, who honestly seemed more interested in the documents. She started looking through them and making a sound, not unlike a rubber duck, on four occasions.

And then an inquisitive grunt. "Which Captain Marvel? All it says are Kree genes."

"We're pretty sure it's from Carol."

Ashley let out a disappointed sigh at that. She flipped to the last page. "Well, that's wrong. If we had Lockheed's genes we'd be invincible."

"Other than that," Brainstorm finished, "we weren't just trying to figure out how to get here. Rule number one of tracking a missing kid, look into if they have a safe home to go to... I don't know if you know this, but you've got an aunt."

"I do?"

"Yeah... But she's in with the Friends of Humanity."

"...Of course." Ashley sounded disturbingly resigned to that.

"So yeah, that's not an option," Brainstorm admitted, "but we did talk to your old landlord. After your aunt said to throw everything out, he saved a few things in case you turned up." Out of the bag came a plushy shaped like Spider-Man, a stack of crayon drawings, a furled up poster, and a framed photograph.

Three rows. An older white man in the back, with a handsome man who seemed to be half white and half Asian on the left and a beautiful Asian woman on the right, with a little girl with a giant smile and bright green eyes in front.

Ashley was shaking. "Th... Thank you."

Miss Militia had taken notes on the relevant things but hadn't spoken until now. "Are we done? There's a band of spree killers active in the city and I'd much prefer to be working with my fellows doing something productive than... whatever this is."

At that point, there was a knock on the door. Whoever it was came in without waiting, however, and I turned to see...

Alexandria. Alexandria was here. I was in the same room as Alexandria. The dark costume, the visor, the tower emblem on her chest...

Stay calm Taylor. Don't make a fool of yourself in front of Alexandria.

Ashley tapped my shoulder. "I don't know all the heroes from here yet. Who is that?"

"That's Alexandria," I whispered back. "You told me about Captain America? She's basically our him."

Ashley saluted Alexandria, who nodded and then stepped around to whisper something to Miss Militia, who seemed to smile based on her eyes, then got up and went to the door. Once there, she gestured to Ashley and I and beckoned us to come.

Out in the hall, she turned to me and said, "Alexandria is here representing Chief Director Costa-Brown. She's taking command here temporarily due to the combination of the Nine's attack and visitors from another reality. I'm going to escort you two back to PRT HQ in the city, whether you agree to fight the Nine or opt-out is up to you. Afterward, I'll be joining Assault and Battery in the search for Shadow Stalker. Cuddlebug, while I have reluctantly accepted the fact that you can do whatever you want, I don't know what you did to get out of the infirmary. I would strongly suggest continuing to rest unless something comes up that needs you."

 **Snuggles The Symbiote**

Once we got back to our room at Wards HQ, and Ashley had gently, lovingly placed her family portrait next to her rose plant, she admitted to me that she wasn't sure if today had been the best day of her life or the worst. Then she yawned.

Ten minutes later, I managed to convince her to take a nap. "Promise you'll get me up if something happens," she said once I got her to lie down.

"I promise," I said. Once I was sure she was asleep, I started looking through the pamphlets that the heroes from her world had given her.

I'd joined the Wards because I couldn't, in good conscience, leave a little girl who had no other options alone in the system. And so far, Director Piggot had proved my fears right.

But what I hadn't expected was that fighting Lung... It'd only been a few weeks but it felt like almost two years. I hadn't expected that that would be the least dangerous thing she and I would get into.

I became a hero becuase I wanted to do something worthwhile. Something good for the world. Ashley... I think taking care of Ashley could be it. and the truth was, I was starting to think of her as less of a foster sister and more of an actual sister. She's such a little ball of sunshine... I'd even go so far as to say I love her.

Which made it especially heartbreaking for me to realize that I couldn't protect her. With the Poisons. With Bloodbath...

I had said that I didn't want her going back to her world, that it'd be safer here, and that if she went back to visit I'd be coming with, but maybe... An island paradise and diplomatic immunity seemed nice. Especially if what she was saying about that Doom fellow and his diplomatic immunity the other day was true. Maybe that would be best for her?

Bloodbath said he was after Ashley to steal "the brat's" kill. the only "brat" in the Nine was Bonesaw. Ashley... Ashley had been fixated on Bonesaw ever since she got the Poison Bonesaw's memories. If Bonesaw was targetting Ashley... The best-case scenario would be that her heart got broken when she realized that there was nothing she could do to save Riley Davis. I didn't want to think about the worst-case scenario.

The pamphlets were a bit hard to parse. Some bits were written in weird glyphs that apparently you needed to go to Krakoa to learn how to read, but the gist of it was that it was, supposedly, a utopia. I'd talk to Ashley about it when she got up. Maybe if I ask nicely they'll let me come with her to visit and learn about the place. I was a bit concerned about the section on the map labeled Bar Sinister though. I couldn't find anything on it in the pamphlets, but I guess it's not that big a deal.


	32. Chapter 34

**Snuggles The Symbiote**

An hour later, Ashley'd got up from her nap and we talked a bit. She took a look through the pamphlets, hummed, and said she wasn't interested. I didn't push it.

I'd asked her to elaborate on her comment about this being either the best or worst day of her life.

"Today's kind of been like a rollercoaster. I wake up to heads in my bed and get into a fight with a dangerous monster. A man... A man saw how badly I was getting beaten and tried to help and... I couldn't do anything to save him, and... the only reason I'm alive is becuase helped showed up just in the right moment, and then I wake up in the infirmary and meet Gabby and she's nice, but..." She paused for a second. "And then, then I get to meet Spider-Man and other famous heroes from my world, and I'm happy, and I get back things I thought I'd lost forever but I also find out that part of my family hates me for what I am and... And then we leave them and I feel bad for feeling happy when just a few hours ago someone died trying to help me..."

So, I hugged her. She was leaving something out, but I wasn't gonna push on that, either.

"I want to fight," she said. "I don't want to stay back while other people are trying to help people and getting hurt. I don't want to... I want to help."

I'd been afraid of this. "Okay," I said. I couldn't exactly tell her no, even though I wanted to. "We'll just tell them we want to help and ask how they can use us."

After a little bit, we went out into the common area. Apparently, the talk with Alexandria went quickly, becuase the second young blonde, maybe slightly older than Vista was supposed to be, in pigtails and a black and yellow jumpsuit with a starburst emblem on her chest, Energizer, was on the couch with Vista, who was in full costume.

"...And that's how we stopped my brother from turning into a horse," the black-and-yellow-clad heroine finished.

"...So, Ashley isn't making this stuff up. Your world really is crazy." Vista sounded amazed. "So, do you know how to stop someone from being two years younger than they're supposed to be and also a tomato?"

"...You're a Hulk, right? Red Hulk?" Energizer said with a grimace. "Uh, that... I'm not a science person."

"I got a chest full of green energy and then almost got cooked by cosmic rays," Vista explained, "almost died. Is that where Red Hulks come from?"

"...You should talk to Val about that." Energizer said. "That's uh... Look, she's the supergenius in every field and her family has a vested interest in that kind of thing."

"So," Vista asked, "where is this Val?"

"Still on that oil rig," Energizer said. Then she sighed. "She ran into that Armsy guy with the beard and your Iron Lad working on an 'anti-S-class' weapon, she asked how they fit so many gadgets in his ax thingy, and uh..." She facepalmed. "She refused to accept that he didn't know how his own tech works and is trying to figure it out."

Vista laughed. "Yeah, nobody knows how Tinker-Tech works, it just does."

And then Vista noticed Ashley and I. She nodded. "Hey. The guys who rescued Ashley are sticking around for a few days to help with the Nine. Energizer is just as awesome as Ashley said she is."

"Thanks!"

"Okay, well, Ashley wants to help so..." I gestured to the door. "We're going to go talk to..." I didn't know who to talk to, actually. "Uh, you know, try to figure out what we can do to help."

 **Snuggles The Symbiote**

Turns out, what we could do to help was try to find Shadow Stalker. Or her body. Since Ashley had a superhuman sense of smell, they gave her a piece of Sophia's costume and told us to look for her in a section of town that Assault and Battery hadn't gotten too yet. Apparently, the idea had come from Laura and Gabby, who had the same power, but they were doing something else. I was supplementing Ashley's search with the local bugs and their senses.

And we werren't alone. Neither Ashley nor myself were that heavy a hitter, as far as brutes were concerned, and we weren't that experienced. Sending us out alone when the Nine was in town would have been stupid.

Armsmaster had turned up shortly after we were told to head out, commenting that the weapons he had been working on with Kid Win were up to standards and that he needed a break from the arrogant little girl who thought that memorizing pi out to a million digits made her qualified to say it should be posisble to figure out how tinker-tech works.

(He did, reluctantly, admit he was impressed that Brainstorm actually _had_ memorized pi out to a million digits. I wasn't quite sure how she'd managed to _prove_ it, but...)

So while Ashley and I took to the rooftops (more to avoid broken glass than anything else, Shaterbird had announced herself shortly after Ashley and I were attacked.), Armsmaster was patrolling the streets below us on his motorcycle, drawing attention to himself and the streets in case we ran into the Nine or if some opportunistic bastard was itching for a fight. He was also collecting samples of the strange, sweet-smelling fog that had rolled in. It didn't seem to be a biological agent, something people were worried about with Bonesaw in town, but he figured knowing what it was and where it came from was important and if he was out and about anyway... Officially he was in charge, but he was following us, tracking Ashley with a device he'd had Mister Snuggle store in the place where he kept Ashley's phone. And we were following Ashley's nose.

A fourth member of our squad, providing the muscle, was the visitor from Ashley's world, Ms. Marvel. I'd asked Ashley if she was strong, and Ashley replied that Ms. Marvel's powers were like Mister Fantastic and Giant-Man combined. I didn't know what that meant, but Ms. Marvel seemed flattered by the comparison.

"So, this has been on my mind for a long time," Ashley said as she leaped from one rooftop to another and took a big sniff. "Where did the second Spider-Man come from? The one on your team, Ms. Marvel. I think it makes the most sense that he's a clone since Spider-Man's been cloned a bazillion times already, but..."

"Oh," Ms. Marvel replied as she pulled herself across the gap with an extended arm. "It's really simple enough: Spider-Man's the second Spider-Man from an alternate universe where the original Spider-Man died. He met our Spider-Man in an interdimensional adventure, but then his home universe was destroyed and he and his friends and family came to ours. Reality was warped to make it so they were retroactively always here though, which has the side effect of making it so that Spider-Man doesn't always remember his true history." _That_ was simple? "It comes and goes. A little while ago, he picked a fight with Venom becuase he confused our Venom for the Venom that killed someone he cared about."

"But that's what Slothbaby on Freakin' Awesome said," Ashley whined. "It's not fair, she can't be right. She ships Spider-Man with Captain Marvel." As I leaped across to the other building, I noticed that one of Ms. Marvel's eyes twitched.

"So... You're Cuddlebug from Freakin' Awesome?" Ms. Marvel said neutrally. "I read your story. _The Champions Meet the Crystal Gems_ was adorable, but you got a lot of stuff wrong about us. Amadeus Cho doesn't have the original Hulk's self-sustenance powers and Cyclops wasn't the original Cyclops' illegitimate son from a teenage fling. Also, Spider-Man's not a clone, but we covered that already."

"I know. Lots of people said the Cyclops thing was dumb. I'm sorry. I had the flu when I wrote it, didn't think it through." Ashley sighed "...Was _Cyclops_ a clone?" She asked suddenly.

"No, Beast went back in time to get himself and the other original X-Men to try and make a point to adult Cyclops, then couldn't get them back to their own time," Ms. Marvel said. "Champions Cyclops was the teenage version of normal Cyclops. He and the others went back to their own time not too long ago and after adult Cyclops came back to life, he could remember everything he did as a time-traveling teen." What the hell was wrong with that world?

"Cyclops is alive again!?"

"Yeah. Jean Grey, too."

"Are they back together!?"

"...I don't know," Ms. Marvel finished. "I haven't talked to him since the War of the Realms."

"The what now?" Ashley asked.

"The Dark Elves of Svartalfeim, the Frost Giants of Jotunheim, the Fire Demons of Muspelheim, assorted trolls, the War Angels of Heven, and so on invaded the Earth with the help of paramilitary forces contracted by Dario Ager and the Roxxon corporation," Ms. Marvel explained. "Big emergency, all hands on deck, lots of drag out knock down fights, a lot of fantastic adventures, Daredevil temporarily became the new Heimdal, Ares lead an army of minions from various supervillain organizations, a dozen ghost-cowboys, and hundreds of fugitive Skrulls against the forces of evil, and Thor got Mjolnir back and is now the All-Father of Asgard."

"Wow," was all Ashley could say.

"Unfortunately, all the Valkeryes died, which would have been a problem if another one hadn't shown up out of nowhere, there were thousands of civilian casualties, and Roxxon somehow got off scot-free for selling out the human race." Ms. Marvel didn't seem happy about that. "Turns out Ager's a minotaur."

"So... Wait!" Ashley had been about to say something when she froze. She sniffed the air a few times, like a dog, then bolted off in the distance.

I sprang after her, but she was faster than me. From the corner of my eyes and the occasional startled bug I could make out Ms. Marvel stretching and jumping behind me and could hear the roar of the engine of Armsmaster's motorcycle in the streets below.

We found her in the streets proper, standing before what, as far as I could make out, had once been a makeshift animal shelter. I say once been, becuase it was currently a bloody mess.

The air was saturated with the disgusting smell of day-old blood and bits of animal carcass and... Let's just say that I was glad that I hadn't eaten anything today.

Armsmaster came in just after us and took a look around. "Well," he said... "Either the Nine targetted Hellhound or this is where Hookwolf keeps his fighting dogs and they targetted him."

"It's Hellhound," Ashley said. "I can smell her. And the dogs that she had at the bank. She was here a lot, and... She was hurt. But she got away. I can smell six dogs but not those six dog's blood." She pointed down the street, where I could make of a short trail of blood that cut off abruptly. "She must have been bleeding, but she and those six dogs got away. I don't know where she went or if she's gonna be okay, but..."

"Those poor dogs," Ms. Marvel said with her hands over her mouth.

"I can smell Shadow Stalker, too," Ashley said. "She smells fresh like. She's still here or she was here very recently. But..."

There was a sound from inside and, careful not to step in a puddle of blood, Ashley moved in.

The inside was just as bad as the outside, stained with blood and viscera. This was an experience I hoped I wouldn't find myself dwelling on in the future.

A lot of bugs had been attracted by the blood, and it wasn't hard for me to use them to get a layout of the place. There was someone here. I didn't know if it was Sophia, but we were here, we had to check it out.

I drew my baton and started leading the others to where the person was, and—

I felt sort of a pulsing tickle in the back of my head, my Spider-Sense, and ducked just in time for something to whiz past my head.

"Oh, you."

I turned to see Sophia Hess standing, but not proudly or confidently. Her clothes, her civilian clothes, were ruffled, wrinkled, and torn and she had dark circles around bloodshot eyes. A very nasty wound on her arm looked like she'd taken a bad cut, stitched it together herself, then used a piece of her shirt as a bandage.

She looked positively manic, and she was holding a crossbow out menacingly.

"Sophia," Ashley said, stepping forward. "We're here to help you. You, you need to come back with us."

"No, no," Sophia said. "That red, gooey bastard's with the Nine, and he took Emma and Madison. Gotta find them, gotta find them before... The Nine were here. There might be a clue to where they're hiding."

Right now, I felt nothing but pity for the girl who ruined my life. "Sophia... It's too late. They're dead."

Sophia's head twisted to the side fast enough that I could hear the vertebrae crack. "What? How?"

"You don't need to know that, Sophia," I said. In the state she was in, finding out how they'd died would just set her off. "Not right now. Not like this."

She stepped forward and I noticed a sort of shadowy, misty after-image tracing her movements. "My best friend was murdered." I swallowed the urge to say that Emma had been my best friend before Sophia stole her... Where had that come from? "I need to know just how badly I need to make the person who did it suffer before I kill them."

Armsmaster stepped forward, holding something. A dart or bolt with a sharp blade at the tip. "Shadow Stalker, these bladed bolts are a violation of the terms of your probation. Considering the circumstances, I'm inclined to look the other way. However," he continued, "you need to come with us back to headquarters. You're tired. You're injured. I understand how you must feel. Someone you care about was taken from you, and you want to make the people who did it pay." I noticed from the corner of my eye that Ashley's eye-lenses had shrunk and turned downward. "But right now you're in no condition to be of any help to anyone."

"How did they die?" She asked again. "I'm not going anywhere until someone answers me."

Ashley looked over to me and to Armsmaster, then back to Sophia. "He uh... He cut their heads off. He snuck into our house and left the heads in my bed. Said he didn't even know we knew them, he just went for the first girls ha saw alone at night."

Sophia laughed. A twisted, mirthless, broken laugh. It happened so suddenly that it knocked me off guard. "Well, isn't that some huge fucking joke? You," she pointed at me, "the biggest fucking jumped up weakling in the whole fucking city, a little bitch that I only gave a mind to because Emma was obsessed, and you, Killer," she pointed to Ashley, "are even worse. You know how this all works. You're strong, I've seen it, and you still act like some goody-two-shoes girl scout and act like doing what needs to be done is wrong." She started laughing again and I noticed that her jaw seemed to open a little too wide on occasion and that something black and misty rolled out from behind her teeth whenever it did. "Emma was stronger than either of you put together. And she dies for what? To send you fuckers a message? I ought to kill the both of you for the insult of it all!"

Sophia stepped forward and as she did she shifted. Something had changed in her breaker state. Before, she became a gaslike wraith with visible bones, but now? Now she doubled in hight in an instant and reached forward with too-long arms of bone enshrouded in a mist that seemed to eat the very light around it. One arm reaching for me, one for Ashley, My Spider-Sense was going off like crazy. I raised my baton, braced myself, and then...

Then a bang. Something was thrown in front of Sophia, something I hadn't noticed, exploded and released some kind of gas that got sucked into Sophia's shifted body. Immediately she became human again and fell to the floor. Within seconds, Armsmaster was next to her, checking her vitals.

"I'm sorry," I said, "what just happened?"

"When Shadow Stalker first joined the Wards, she did so after putting a lot of effort into proving that she deserved a second chance after using bladed crossbow bolts to crucify a man," Armsmaster explained. "Her psych evaluation hinted at some of the warning signs of a psychopath. I was having a slow week, so I designed a grenade meant to disperse an aerosolized dose of my standard tranquilizer, just in case she went off the ranch." He sighed while checking her over. "When she got back from the boot camp she agreed to go to, she seemed inclined to follow the rules so I put them in storage and forgot about them till now." Part of me wanted to bring up everything Sophia had done to me, all the ways she hadn't been behaving... But another part of me didn't want to kick her while she was down.

"...So, why now?" Ashley asked.

"She was missing when the Slaughterhouse Nine were in town. Between Bonesaw's habit of making monsters out of dead heroes and Jack Slash's demonstrated charisma and skill with manipulating those who are... Prone to violence, as it were, I felt it prudent to have a way to neutralize Shadow Stalker, in case she was compromised. I wasn't expecting her to have Second Triggered though."

"For those of us who don't know as much about power mechanics as we should?" I asked.

"Or those of us who feel like fifth wheels in a particularly violent soap opera?" In all the excitement I'd sort of forgotten that Ms. Marvel was here.

"A parahuman's powers activate in response to stress and manifest in ways tailored to the stress. Master powers come from social isolation. Shaker powers from environmental threats. Tinkers from long-term problems without obvious solutions. Brutes from physical injury." Armsmaster lectured. "And the stress has to be extreme. For first-generation Parahumans, the kind of trauma that leaves permanent scars and issues that recur." Ashley walked over and gave me a hug when Armsmaster said that.

"A second trigger is when a Parahuman experiences the same kind of stress that triggered their powers in the first place, with clear parallels to the original Trigger events, but far more extreme. Someone who triggered from waking up in a tub of ice with their kidney missing would need to be awake but helpless while their other organs are being harvested one at a time to second trigger."

"That's an oddly specific example," Ms. Marvel pointed out.

"I didn't make it up. You'd have to ask her former compatriots in the Orlando Protectorate for the full details, but Kidney Woman was never the same after she tried to break up the Floridamen's organ trafficking ring." I wanted to ask if he was joking, but his grim expression said he wasn't. "Upon second triggering, a Parahuman's powers will grow and change, but it's almost never a straight increase in power. Drawbacks become more severe, mental influences from the power become stronger, some features might be lost to make room for new ones. Very rarely the power might change completely. And it almost always either becomes harder to control or else never completely turns off." Armsmaster looked at me. "You, Weaver, actually fit the criteria for what is called a double trigger, where the second trigger occurs shortly after the first." Ashley hugged me tighter. "However, that's mostly based on the length of time you were incapacitated and your statements about your master and thinker powers. I'm sure you'd rather not go into the details of your trigger event just to confirm my hunch."

"Yeah," I said awkwardly.

"In Shadow Stalker's case," he said, "it seems like her breaker state has shifted to something more suited for combat at the cost of always being partially shifted."

"...So, we found her," Ashley stated. "Now what?"

"We should head back," Armsmaster said as he lifted Sophia in a princess carry. "She'll be out for a few hours. I want her in a secure cell where she can be monitored when she wakes up. Her behavior could be explained by the stress of the Nine's attack, but she became more aggressive after her initial trigger and we can't rule out that her power had something to do with it. It's possible that the second trigger left her unhinged and until we can verify, it's too dangerous to leave her unattended."

He carried her out, and we all followed behind him.

To find her street full of metal boxes, about the size of toasters each on spider-legs tipped with various syringes and surgical tools. And just after that realization, I noticed that I'd lost track of every bug in the area and my Spider-Sense started going off again.

"Does anyone else smell formaldehyde?" I didn't want to know how Ashley knew what formaldehyde smelled like, but I didn't have time to dwell on it becuase a sweet, childlike voice said from up the street.

"Oh, how fun, Hatchet. We come down here becuase Siberian said there were lots of dead dogs we could harvest for grey matter, and we get here and the girl I want to play with the most is right there."


End file.
